UnWrapped: Class Act (Sydney Opera House) ★★★½

Lead Artist: Mish Gregor. Sydney Opera House. 28-31 Aug, 2024.

Sydney Opera House’s UnWrapped season is underway, giving independent creators the chance to produce groundbreaking, unique works in its hallowed halls (well theatre spaces), and first up is Mish Grigor’s Class Act. Using the tale of My Fair Lady to attack the insidious class divide in Australia, and particularly the arts industry, Grigor channels her rage into a funny and sometimes uncomfortable 60 minute long show.

If you think Australia doesn’t have a class divide then you’ve been buying into our own national propaganda. Sydney-siders are quick to break into tribal lines based on income or geography. It’s Westies and Bogans vs the Eastern Suburbs and Northern Beaches. Home-owners vs renters. Loewe vs Lowes. We don’t use the same language as Britain’s entrenched divisions, but they exist here in subtler ways. 

Under the direction of Zoey Dawson, Grigor and dancer Alice Dixon ease you into the story with visual gags and witty asides, slowly drawing the parallels to modern Australia that grow deeper as the show goes on. As Grigor and Dixon twist the narrative, and break any pretence of a fourth wall, it becomes clear that we are not here to passively observe. We, the comfortable theatre goers, are under the microscope. 

As Grigor transposes her own story into that of My Fair Lady, she makes us squirm in our seats. Wisecracks about poverty and privilege are pointed back at us. The codes of our bourgeois existence, our Ottolenghi salads, holiday homes and, well, shoes, make us the butt of the jokes. Grigor breaks the unspoken code of the theatre. She is not “one of us” (middle-class), she is “one of them” (the poor). While, like Eliza Doolittle, she can speak the language, wear the clothes and enter the ballroom like all the other posh women, she might end up skipping the hors d’oeuvres and just “eat the rich” instead. 

There is an element of Gen Z “trauma-bragging” but somehow the show strikes an uncanny balance between entertaining and damning us all. At a time when it seems only the rich can afford to go into the arts, this performance piece makes sure we know how damn lucky we are to afford the luxury of a show (at the Opera House no less), especially for those who paid for the deluxe High Table seating at the very front. 

Class Act is refreshing and confronting. With smart directorial choices and two performances that sit right on the edge of many peoples comfort zone, it’s the kind of show that constantly challenges and surprises.