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Written by Joanna Murray-Smith. World Premiere. Sydney Theatre Company. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. 31 Mar – 20 May, 2023

Friends, Aussies, Countrymen, lend me your ears. We have come to the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House today, not to examine the life and legacy of former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, but canonise her. This is St Julia, the patron saint of nailing misogynists to the wall and the new play, Julia, by Joanna Murray-Smith, is the origin story of a political superhero.

A personal aside: in 2012 I was living overseas and had been for 6 years. The only times I saw Australia on the news was either a sporting victory, or a political embarrassment in which Australia was treated as “oh those silly backward colonials” before jumping to a story about war or the economy. When people started asking me if I’d seen Julia Gillard’s speech I girded my loins for the next chapter of “oh Australia” before watching the Youtube link I was sent. Watching the speech made me proud, because finally someone was speaking out against the retrogrades that plague this country. But even more amazing was watching the reactions around me. This was an “Obama moment”. A piece of oratory that hit a universal chord. So it’s fitting that that speech has become the centrepiece of a proudly Australian play.

To quote The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”, and that is what Murray-Smith’s play does. It sorts through Julia Gillard’s life to find the right pieces to create a very specific narrative, an historical foundation around “the speech” that will support and elevate it, as if this were the driving hand of fate leading Gillard to one climactic moment. Murray-Smith takes a messy piece of real life and sculpts it into something that is less like theatre and more like an evangelical crusade, in which “the speech” is the final “salvation call”. This is Julia Gillard as Billy Graham.

And it’s a fiction really, a handpicked hagiography. The play nods at the difficulty of climbing the greasy pole of politics, but is quick to wash Gillard’s hands clean because those moments don’t conform to the way this story has to go. It glosses over the fact “the speech” was a brilliant piece of misdirection that swung the public eye away from a damaging scandal and reframed Gillard in the zeitgiest.

The construction of this mostly one-woman-show should be studied for the nuance it achieves and its excellent sense of rhythm. Julia plays with your emotions, nudging your pride and outrage, it does everything it needs to bring you the climax. “The speech” is always waiting in the wings filling you with antici…. (you’ve seen Rocky Horror, you know the drill). It frames the opening words “I will not” as if it were MLK saying “I have a dream” and doesn’t let you forget it.

Everything on stage has a clarity of purpose. Director Sarah Goodes gives Julia a confident restraint, knowing when to deploy the simple but emotive video design (by Susie Henderson). Our Julia, Justine Clarke, looks nothing like Gillard, but over the course of 90 minutes, she slowly transforms into her. Clarke gently modulates between her own performance and Gillard voice and mannerism for dramatic effect. By the time we hit the speech in full, Clarke has melted away and Gillard stands before you like this is the Second Coming.

All heroic journeys need villains and there are plenty to pick from in Gillard’s rise. Kevin Rudd is painted as a narcissist, Tony Abbott as a backward’s bigot, Alan Jones as… well, Alan Jones. Murray-Smith happily points the finger at those around Gillard. Clarke gives us moments of personal emotion that we, the public, were denied in real life – softening and humanising Gillard in ways the media never did at the time.

I keep thinking this feels like a ‘thing’. Instead of masking our insecurity with a larkin’s comedy about our politics, for once Australia is staging a piece that praises our own history and it feels utterly deserving. It’s the kind of pride we’re used to seeing in British or American theatre (or, even more weirdly, Australian theatre about America – I’m looking at your RBG: Of Many, One!), but rarely about our own history. This feels like we’ve put our famed ‘cultural cringe’ to bed, and aren’t ashamed to present Australian culture as a legitimate player on the world stage.

You can quibble over the accuracy or politics of the real Julia Gillard, but you can not question the strength of Julia, the play. This is dynamic, uplifting and revelatory theatre and the closest I’ve gotten to shouting “Amen!” in a very long time.

Written by August Wilson. Australian Premiere. Sydney Theatre Company. Wharf Theatre. 25 Mar – 6 May, 2023.

Sydney Theatre Company has struck a vein of precious gems with its presentation of overlooked African-American classics. First a dynamic production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in Sun, and now August Wilson’s tale of generational struggle, Fences. 

Troy Maxson (Bert LaBonté) is a fighter and a survivor. Overcoming the struggles of his past to build a life and raise, feed and house a family. He believes in right and wrong because he has been on both sides and learned his lessons the hard way. A loyal friend, a stern father, a loving husband, he was a baseball star in his youth but his ambitions were squashed by racism, or so he believes. His wife Rose (a luminous Zahra Newman) has asked him to build a fence around their small yard. His 17 year old son Cory (Darius Williams) has become something of a rising football star with his mother’s blessing but against his father’s wishes. As Cory defies his father in pursuit of his own dream, Troy’s seemingly impervious exterior starts to peel away to reveal the cracks underneath. 

Jeremy Allen has created a set so detailed and immersive it is easy to slip into this world of 1950s Pittsburg. A small porch, overlooking a bare yard sandwiched between other houses. A tree rises into the rafters of the Wharf 1 theatre – it’s a set so tactile you want to run your hand over the brickwork and bark. Beautiful and subtle lighting by Verity Hampson brings these textures to life. Director Shari Sebbens has created a production that feels rich and lived in. 

I can’t heap enough praise on the cast, especially the three leads of LaBonté, Newman and Williams. This family feels real with all the nuance required to give us a sense of history, love and long held aggressions. You completely believe the depth of their emotions, and their eventual outbursts ring with a sense of long delayed catharsis. 

And praise the theatre gods, the accents are flawless! Nothing pulls me out of a production more than bad accent work, or worse, actors who are so distracted by their accents they fail to give anything more than a surface performance (it’s like the part of their brain that usually does the emotional subtext gets tied up focusing on getting the voice right). Here, there is nothing to get in the way of the audience investing in the reality of this story. The presentation is completely immersive.

I referred to these works as “African-American classics” but that feels like calling King Lear  “a White British Classic” and brushing past the universality of the story. Troy’s best friend Jim (Markus Hamilton) ponders whether Rose wants a fence to keep people out, or to keep people in – the dual impulses of every parent. Troy is a middle-aged man whose mistrust of the world, that once helped him prosper, is now starting to destroy all he’s achieved. He risks crushing his own son’s dreams, based on his own history, unable to accept that the world may have moved on. Cory is a young man with big dreams, angry at being held back by the fears of an older generation. These stories work for everyone.

Fences is a Pulitzer Prize winner for a reason, and I sincerely hope Sydney Theatre Co keep bringing these towerinly great works to the stage for us to enjoy. Go see it now. You may not get a production of Fences this good for a very long time.

Written by James McManus. KXT Broadway. Mar 24 – Apr 8, 2023.

Four excellent performances and slick, smart design work combine to bring James McManus’ Cherry Smoke to life and give the new KXT Broadway a proper launch. It’s just unfortunate the play itself doesn’t live up to all the good work done to bring it to the stage.

Fish, and his younger brother Duffy, scrape by on their own. With no education and no prospects, Fish’s only skill is fighting. When he was nine his father threw him into illegal fights to earn money going up against older kids and it’s been the same ever since. He is idolised by young Cherry, a fellow homeless girl who lives by the river and occasionally speaks to Jesus. Over the years, as Fish goes in and out of prison, they start to grow into adulthood and realise life doesn’t get any easier.

Tom Dawson and Meg Hyeronimus have charm to spare as Fish and Cherry. Dawson has a youthful glee that morphs into adolescent aggression easily. Fish isn’t the smartest kid in town, but his internal logic is consistent, even if it’s desperately flawed. Having such a strong Fish at the centre of this production lets the other performers rise. You can understand why Cherry is in love with him, why Duffy (Fraser Crane) looks up to him and also why Bug (Alice Birbara) is wary of him. Hyeronimus’s Cherry is a headstrong survivor and her love of Fish is absolute.

Cherry and Fish’s dramatic and intense affair is juxtaposed with Duffy’s relationship with Bug (Alice Birbara). An awkward girl with a big heart, it’s her journey that hits hardest despite happening on the side of the main plot. Birbara absolutely shines as the one bright spot in this tale, slowly being dimmed by life’s creeping tragedies. All four performers wring the most from their roles, and while the accent work was sometimes a little patchy, the emotional truths spoke volumes.

The problems all lie with a dour, unfocused script that is sub-Tracey-Letts without the psychological depth. McManus fetishes the working-class poor without really looking at the issues involved. This is a middle-class tourist’s view of abject poverty that is here to shock rather than enlighten. A messy, time-jumping structure makes it hard to track Fish’s emotional journey, resulting in an ending that is unearned and overly sensational. Incessant monologues inflate the running time and offer little insight other than showing how good these performers are.

Cherry Smoke at KXT Broadway succeeds in christening the new venue with great performances and some terrific staging. While the text itself didn’t impress, the talent on stage makes this worth a watch.