Converted (ATYP) ★★½

Music & Lyrics by Vic Zerbst and Oliver John Cameron. Book by Vic Zerbst. World Premiere. Sydney Festival. ATYP Rebel Theatre. 3-25 Jan, 2025.

Camp and colourful, the new queer musical Converted has a lot of heart, which goes some way to make up for its lack of depth. While it’s nice to fold asexuality and non-binary genders into the familiar inclusive coming-of-age tropes, that alone isn’t quite enough to build a show around.

Teenager Maya (Megan Robinson) feels misunderstood and alone, often spending her lunchtimes with her favourite teacher, Glenda (Cassie Hamilton), whom she may have a crush on. When Glenda recommends Maya spend time at ‘Fix Yourself’, a camp for low self-esteem teens, she eagerly agrees hoping to make herself more popular.. Once she gets there, she meets the rebellious and charismatic butch Bone (Teo Vergara), with whom she instantly feels a connection. However, the camp leaders are unsubtly pushing her toward Horace (Teo Persechino)—trying to get the two teens together in a “normal” (i.e., heterosexual) pairing. As the toxic leaders Mr and Mrs Doctor (Nat Jobe and Helen Dallimore—both chewing the scenery) push the kids to look in the mirror and focus on the things people don’t like in order to change and become lovable, it starts to become clear that ‘Fix Yourself’ isn’t just a wellness camp for high schoolers; it’s a conversion therapy camp for queer teens. But will these gay, lesbian, non-binary, and asexual kids reject the attempts to “fix” them and learn to love themselves for who they really are? Obviously. Will the camp leaders be secretly gay themselves? Probably. Will it all end in a big dance number? Definitely.

Take the 1999 queer teen comedy But I’m A Cheerleader or that episode of Will & Grace where Jack sneaks into a conversion therapy camp to rescue his grandson, put them in a 2025 context, and you’ve got the basics of Converted.

As a satire, it’s all pretty toothless. The comedy is played so broadly it’s almost a pantomime, and the characters are little more than elevator pitches in search of some layers. The lack of subtext or anything approximating an honest emotion robs the story of its punch and makes the emotional beats feel unearned. I only care about these kids in the abstract.

The show constantly pulls its punches when it comes to gay conversion therapy – a psychologically dangerous practice that is disturbingly still legal in parts of Australia. Why is a “conversion therapy musical” tiptoeing around the basic premise of the show? Is Converted afraid of offending the type of religious homophobes who definitely will not be sitting in the audience? For a show that is didactically one-note in its message of self-acceptance, it feels like a very weird omission.

While I didn’t expect the plot to take any wild swings (SPOILER— a happy ending is guaranteed for everyone; even the “baddies” get a hug), there is very little here that takes the slightest diversion on the way to the pre-prescribed feel-good finale. And at 2.5 hours, we really need something fresh to make it all worthwhile.

Which isn’t to say there aren’t some lovely moments; they just all happen to relate to the side characters. Sammy (Melody Kiptoo), a shy girl who doesn’t know where her “compass of attraction” is pointing, gives us the most grounded and affecting storyline of the night. Give me a whole show reoriented around her, please! Poor Kyle (Ashley Garner), a straight boy who has been dropped off at the wrong camp, provides genuine laughs. Garner also plays the second role of Silent Greg, one of the camp leaders and Glenda’s fiancé, with equal amounts of fun—consistently giving the best performance(s) of the whole show. Strangely, the person I felt most for in the end is poor Glenda, who really got steamrolled on the way to the big, joyous ending.

Director Hayden Tonazzi throws in some moments of directorial flair, and while some of the comedy beats are overplayed, he knows how to deliver a set piece. Lighting by Brockman takes the meme of “bisexual lighting” to new limits with a colour scheme of pinks, blues, and purples, with some sharp neon accents. The set and costumes by Savanna Wegman will either delight or horrify, depending on your personal views about tie-dye. The lo-fi joy of watching an inflatable piece of set slowly emerge was one of the night’s high points (the deadpan assistance of Scarlet Lindsay, the onstage swing & dance captain, nailed it).

The rest of the cast are strong but are dealing with weak, inconsistent material. The songs are overwritten and forgettable (and there are too many fillers; the whole show needs a proper trim). There are jokes aplenty, but the hit rate is frustratingly low. It has little to say about the bigger issues it touches upon, and does nothing to challenge or enlighten the audience—the show seems to be content repeating well-meaning platitudes of self-acceptance.

Converted needs more time to discover what it really is and what it really wants to say. For all the good intentions and goodwill the show generates, it doesn’t necessarily make for good theatre. There’s definitely things to love here, but Converted ends up just preaching to the choir.