Sunset Strip (New Theatre) ★★★

Written by Suzie Miller. New Theatre. 9 Jul – 3 Aug, 2024.

Misery loves company, and Suzie Miller’s Sunset Strip sees two sisters deal with their own pain in different ways. This revival production at New Theatre (seven years after the play’s debut at Griffin) serves as a showcase for its two leading performers and a look back at Miller’s own journey as a playwright.

Caroline (Erica Nelson) has come back to the old family home to find things are not as they were. The lake outside has dried up, leaving a bed of silt and dirt. Her father Ray (Vincent Melton) dips in and out of lucidity as dementia takes grip. And her sister Phoebe (Molly Haddon) is excited and desperate to prove to Caroline that things are good. But Caroline is tired. A cancer survivor, she is worn down by chemotherapy and the end of her relationship, and now she has come home to help her sister regain custody of her two children.

There is a familiar duality to Caroline and Phoebe. Caroline, the urbane, successful city lawyer who is disappointed by a world that isn’t the way it should be, and Phoebe, the impulsive one who reacts to life as it comes. But deep down the similarities start to come to the fore. Both women have a habit of running away from their problems and both have dangerous chemicals running through their veins that are helping them survive.

Miller’s great strength is her ability to pace out a story, and by playing with our expectations she lets the details of the plot drop neatly into place. Phoebe’s erratic behaviour and Caroline’s reserve are understandable in context, as is Caroline’s shock to discover that Phoebe is planning to marry her boyfriend Teddy (Shane Davidson) on short notice. Both women believe they are making the right decisions for their lives and it brings them into conflict with each other. 

Haddon has the showier role in the nervous/vivacious Phoebe whose nature covers darker problems. After having her children taken away by the state, Phoebe is desperate to prove she is clean and able to be the mother she wants to be, but it’s clear she is constantly on the edge of tipping over. This is the kind of juicy part actors love to throw themselves into and Haddon doesn’t hold back.

In contrast Nelson’s Caroline is grieving multiple things at once while still recovering. The result could be a loss of on-stage energy, but Nelson keeps Caroline’s mind active. She may not be running around in circles like Phoebe, but you can feel her watching, analysing and weighing up her options. 

Director/designer Annette van Roden’s production thankfully encloses the large space to give us intimacy, with a playful set that evokes a much larger environment. At times the production dips into arms-flailing-to-show-emotion/melodrama but Caroline’s core dilemma was strongly felt. Should she choose the safer path and walk away, leaving her sister’s life in ruins, or commit to the long hard road ahead by staying… Miller weaves this into a complex web of motivations meaning the character could conceivably go either way and the audience would buy it.

We know Miller is a great writer and in these earlier plays we can feel her working out ideas within the constraints of familiar theatrical tropes (‘returning sibling unearths family trauma’ is a genre all its own). Sunset Strip feels like Miller was still using the training wheels of this set-up to do a few laps before she would step outside them to something even greater. If like me, you never saw the original production, this is a great chance to play catch up.