Bloom (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★

Music by Katie Weston and Lyrics by Tom Gleisner. Book by Tom Gleisner. Sydney Theatre Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre. 29 Mar – 11 May, 2025.

Tom Gleisner & Katie Weston’s Bloom arrives in Sydney following its well-reviewed premiere at Melbourne Theatre Co in 2023. A brand-new, homegrown musical is always worth supporting, particularly on the scale of a mainstage production. We get so few. However, I can’t help but feel this bloom has been picked a bit too soon.

Finn (Slone Sudiro), a listless university student, is looking for a place to live and thinks he’s stumbled upon a great deal: living and working at Shady Pines… sorry, the Pine Grove Aged Care facility. The flyer he has promises room and board in exchange for light domestic duties, helping out the team looking after elderly residents, including the reluctant firebrand Rose (Evelyn Krape), the absent-minded thespian Roland (John O’May), the lonely artist Lesley (Jackie Rees), old mechanic Doug (John Waters), and others. While the scheme may be the legally dubious brainchild of corporate penny-pincher Mrs MacIntyre (a show-stealing Christie Whelan Browne) — and loathed by the facility’s well-trained and underpaid professional staff — Finn forms new bonds with the collection of oddballs he’s forced to live with, and maybe something more.

Bloom is at its best when it lets the humour cut close to the bone. Christie Whelan Browne deliciously dissects the business of aged care as the facility administrator, more interested in balancing the budget than actually providing appropriate services. Easily the best vocalist and comedian in the cast, she lights up her scenes with the kind of precision we expect from musical comedy talent. Her scenes play into Tom Gleisner’s comedy (with a distinct Frontline edge to some of the jokes), and her delivery is spot on. She may be a pantomime villain, but she milks it for all its worth.

Without her, the show drifts into twee comedy and obvious plot points. Most of the characters are wafer-thin constructs (one-note jokes with a touch of tragic backstory — like the kleptomaniac Betty (Maria Mercedes), whose long awaited son has yet to visit). Or there’s the romance subplot that shuffles along to the obvious conclusion, completely ignoring the real sex lives of older people in care, plus there’s an overly convenient (if cute) resolution you’ll probably clock a mile off. It’s old-school sit-com fodder that would work as the B-plot to an episode of The Golden Girls.

The script, while gently amusing and structurally sound, struggles to maintain clarity in its message. On one hand, it laments the lack of respect and support given to professionals working in aged care, yet on the other, it suggests an amateur could genuinely become a therapist with no training. The play sidesteps the morally complicated issue of whether Mrs MacIntyre might actually have a point (if the budget can’t be settled, the whole facility may be shut down) in favour of presenting her as a simplistic “corporate villain.”

Vocally, the cast ranges from acceptable to good, with some of the older cast’s voices straining to hit their notes. Only Whelan Browne truly delivers professional musical theatre excellence. They’re all slightly hampered by an overly loud band at the rear of the stage, which drowns out some of the lyrics when the energy gets too high. 

Thankfully, a cast this warm and endearing helps paper over the inadequacies of the material. It’s hard to dislike John Waters or Evelyn Krape, no matter what they do. Slone Sudiro has a slacker’s charm that works well alongside Vidya Makan’s frustration (as young professional carer Ruby), and Christina O’Neil’s portrayal of the overworked but earnest Gloria.

The multi-layered set (by Dann Barber) is almost too convincing with its depressing, claustrophobic feel. The staging’s one breakout moment provides a much-needed respite from the teal/gray walls but comes quite late and is gone too soon. Andrew Hallsworth’s choreography shines in some brilliant moments, though it is otherwise limited to “old people shuffling in time.”

And the songs… Most of them have first-base melodies and predictable rhymes, like listening to Christian easy-listening radio in the ’90s. They’re pleasantly dull, or at worst, actively distracting from the scene. One key moment is completely undercut by a superfluous number that diminishes, rather than enhances, the emotional impact. Bloom would likely be better as a touchingly comedic play.

Bloom is like a blend of better stories: Louis Nowra’s Cosi and Alan Bennett’s Allelujah, full of nice moments and missed opportunities. The broader issues surrounding the development of new musicals is a topic for another time, but Bloom feels as though its ambitions have been clipped by a lack of development time and/or money. Thankfully, Christie Whelan Browne is always worth the price of admission, and she makes this show work.