The Shiralee (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★★

Adapted by Kate Mulvany. Based on the novel by D’Arcy Niland. Sydney Theatre Company. Sydney Opera House, Drama Theatre. Oct 6 – Nov 29, 2025.

A cast of STC all-stars, and a brilliant STC debut, make The Shiralee a feast for lovers of great performances. As bush poetry transforms into onstage drama, Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of the ’50s Aussie classic hits big with both characters and emotions.

Swagman Macauley (Josh McConville) lives by a simple code: no attachments, no obligations. After leaving a pregnant lover behind in Goulburn, he heads to Sydney and fathers a child with another woman, Marge (Kate Mulvany). But family life doesn’t sit well with him, and he hits the road to earn a living, returning to his family only intermittently.

When he comes back to find his nine-year-old daughter Buster (Ziggy Resnick) drunk and neglected, and Marge in bed with another man he snaps. In a rage, he assaults Marge’s lover, takes Buster, and leaves — hitting the road again, only this time with a child in tow. As he teaches her the way of the outback, she slowly teaches him how to be a father.

The heart and soul of this father-daughter story lies in the chemistry between McConville and Resnick, which absolutely beams from the stage. With 2025 eyes, the “parent/child on the road” trope feels familiar — from Lone Wolf & Cub to The Mandalorian and The Last of Us. But The Shiralee predates them all, and the uniquely Australian setting, combined with the tender dynamic between McConville and Resnick, keeps it feeling fresh.

Both McConville and Resnick layer their performances with emotional truth that fills each scene — these are honest portrayals befitting the “Aussie battlers” they embody. It could not have been more perfectly cast. McConville brings a wounded soul to the harsh Macauley, keeping the audience sympathetic without softening his tough exterior. It’s a muscular performance that avoids lazy stereotypes.

Resnick turns “being annoying” into Buster’s charming superpower as the precocious child slowly discovers the world anew. Casting an adult to play a pre-teen is a risky move, but Resnick brings an unassuming honesty to the role that plays into a child’s innocent brashness — it’s an endearing STC debut.

Around them, a cast of talented comic actors play things straight to great effect. Stephen Anderson, Paul Capsis, Lucia Mastrantone and Aaron Pedersen modulate a variety of smaller roles to bring light and shade to the story. The laughs come easily, but they’re all laced with the dusty tragedy of lives lived in harsh conditions. Catherine Văn-Davies delights as the tough, independent country beauty Lily, as does Mulvany as the complicated and tormented Marge — both roles hugely benefiting from Mulvany’s adaptation, which refuses to reduce the female characters to mere ciphers.

There are moments of poetry in Mulvany’s text that truly sing and give The Shiralee scale. It also helps smooth over the rougher edges of the time, giving Mulvany room to balance out Macauley’s harsh masculinity with hints of hard-won respect for the Indigenous and queer people around him. In McConville’s hands, these moments feel organic, not merely grafted onto the original narrative.

However, there’s a dip in the dramatic tension of second act that robs the story of some momentum. The act break’s “cliffhanger” feels abrupt and unearned, as does the second act’s major plot moment. I needed a fraction more foreshadowing or narrative hand-holding to stay onboard with the story — a bit more nuts-and-bolts prose to balance the poetry.

While The Shiralee struggles to build to its final emotional landing, it’s a fighter — full of grit, heart, and soul. With a cast this stacked, and two standout performances from McConville and Resnick, you won’t walk away disappointed.