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Welcome to Cultural Binge
The rating system is simple:
★★★★★ – Terrific, world-standard. Don’t miss.
★★★★ – Great, definitely worth seeing.
★★★ – Good. Perfectly entertaining. Recommended. Individual mileage may vary.
★★ – Fine. Flawed and not really recommended, but you may find something to appreciate in it.
★ – Bad (& possibly offensive).
See more reviews over at The Queer Review.
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Circle Mirror Transformation (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★★
Written by Annie Baker. Wharf 1 Theatre. Sydney Theatre Co. 12 Jul – 7 Sep, 2025.
Circle Mirror Transformation is a tonic for the real-world dramas taking place. This gentle character comedy unveils itself at a careful pace, with a spacious script that allows five fantastic performances to fill the stage. Tip: Keep an eye on everyone’s faces, its all in the hilarious micromoments.
A group of strangers meet in an empty studio to take introductory acting classes from Marty (Rebecca Gibney). There is Theresa (Jessie Lawrence), who moved from New York to this small Vermont town five months ago; the recently divorced carpenter Schultz (Nicholas Brown); and the shy 16-year-old Lauren (Ahunim Abebe), who wants to study theatre, or perhaps veterinary science, when she goes to university. The group is rounded out by Marty’s husband, James (Cameron Daddo). Over the course of six weeks, personal boundaries come crashing down and everyone receives more than they anticipated.
Jessie Lawrence and Cameron Daddo. Photo: Daniel Boud. There is a refreshing simplicity to Circle Mirror Transformation that is instantly relaxing. It is undoubtedly a comedy, but the laughs don’t come from set-ups and punchlines; they bubble up out of character. Annie Baker’s script gives us time to get to know these people, their foibles, and their dreams. Told in a succession of short moments (it reminded me a lot of Nick Payne’s Constellations, seen at STC in 2023), the story lies not in what is said, but in the reactions of the characters. It’s a relatively slow burn for a comedy, but worthwhile.
Ahunim Abebe, Rebecca Gibney, Cameron Daddo, Jessie Lawrence and Nicholas Brown. Photo: Daniel Boud. Many people will no doubt buy tickets to see the STC debut of two of Australia’s most beloved screen talents, Rebecca Gibney and Cameron Daddo—both of whom deliver disarming and warm performances—but the real gems come from the trio of Ahunim Abebe, Nicholas Brown, and Jessie Lawrence. This cast, under the direction of Dean Bryant, keeps things grounded and is all the richer for it. Each role feels both quirky and authentic, without trying too hard to get a laugh from the audience. These may be the most organic performances I’ve seen all year, deliciously underplayed, drawing you in.
Once the audience learns the play’s rhythms, its humour truly begins to shine. It rewards us by layering the laughs into the action. These five flawed and fickle people are all too familiar and relatable. Their desires and slights are petty on a grand scale, but seismic within this small group.
Nicholas Brown. Photo: Daniel Boud. As anyone who has attended any form of introductory acting class knows, the process of breaking down people’s inhibitions and inviting them to play can seem peculiar to onlookers, and Circle Mirror Transformation makes the most of this awkwardness. Jeremy Allen’s set, with a mirrored wall looking back at the audience, puts us right in the action. It also allows the cast to perform scenes with their backs to the audience in a naturalistic way. Clemence Williams’ sound design makes use of Wharf 1’s crisp speaker system to immerse us in breaths and the odd noises of vocal warm-ups between scenes.
Circle Mirror Transformation does not have the political edge of recent comedies like Eureka Day or Hir, and its levity feels like a deliberate counterweight to STC’s last show, the meaty existential comedy Happy Days. The pace may frustrate some, but after a hectic few days I rejoiced in being able to decompress in its staging. It felt like drinking a glass of wine after a stressful day—a crisp, aromatic Pinot Gris rather than a woody Chardonnay.
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Hir (New Theatre) ★★★½
Written by Taylor Mac. New Theatre. 8 Jul – 2 Aug, 2025.
Taylor Mac’s Hir, now over a decade old, remains startlingly ahead of its time. While conversations about gender have grown increasingly chaotic and polarised, this play focuses less on pronouns and more on the complex forces driving its characters.
Isaac (Luke Visentin), known simply as ‘I’, returns home from a stint in the military to find his childhood house in utter chaos. Laundry litters the floor, dirty dishes clog the kitchen, and the front door is blocked by… stuff. His father, Arnold (Rowan Greaves), is now an incoherent, stupefied figure — a lump in a nightgown smeared with clown makeup. Max (Lola Kate Carlton), Isaac’s sibling, no longer identifies as his sister but as genderqueer, using ze/hir neopronouns. Meanwhile, their mother, Paige (Jodine Muir), freed from Arnold’s violent tyranny, enforces one strict rule: absolutely no cleaning. This is far from a happy household.
Photo: Chris Lundie. Playwright Taylor Mac, now better known for his durational music extravaganzas such as A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and Bark of Millions, uses his insider perspective to poke fun at progressive ideals. Unlike a cisgender playwright, whose intentions might be questioned, Mac’s lived experience outside the gender binary lends his observations both sharpness and authenticity.
Beneath the surface, Hir is not about gender or sexuality; it is a raw exploration of trauma and control. Arnold, once a terrifyingly violent presence, has been reduced to a powerless shadow by a stroke. Paige, seizing control, exacts retribution through countless humiliations. Max, despite hir rebellious claims, remains a teenager craving approval. And Isaac wrestles with a haunting question: will he become like his father? In this tangled web of wounds and fears, even a battle over the air-conditioning becomes a fraught, almost warlike struggle.
Photo: Chris Lundie. Kudos to Jodine Muir, who delivers commanding speeches brimming with jargon and gender theory, and to Rowan Greaves, whose near-mute Arnold looms over every scene. Victor Kalka’s set, with its lived-in, seedy aesthetic, perfectly captures the household’s disarray (as a neat-freak, it disturbed me). The Gen X playlist warmed my middle-aged heart. However, some of the longer scenes lack the dynamic shifts needed to keep the audience fully engaged, and there are big emotional moments that feel unjustified. At times, the production risks becoming entangled in its grand ideas and choreography, slightly overshadowing the human journeys at its heart.
Photo: Chris Lundie. Though it joins the long tradition of “families being awful to each other” plays, Hir still feels refreshingly original. Its characters are deliciously complex, revelling in the darker undercurrents of some utopian ideals. Taylor Mac understands that politics is often just a form of drag — it’s the person beneath the surface who truly matters.
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Marrow (Carriageworks) ★★★★
Choreographed by Daniel Riley with Australian Dance Theatre’s Company Artists. Australian Dance Theatre. Carriageworks. 10-12 Jul, 2025.
Australian Dance Theatre’s new work, Marrow, hits the ears like a rave and the heart like a punch. Much of this power comes from the work of Kaurna and Narungga dancer Karra Nam.
It starts as many dance pieces do, with an empty stage. Off to the side, a small, solo branch sticks out of the wall with a single blue fairy-wren, the Waatji Pulyeri, sitting on it. As the beats (by Jaadwa composer James Howard—available to purchase on vinyl) begin and the dancers enter, the stage transforms into a contemporary club-like space. The ADT ensemble (Joshua Doctor, Yilin Kong, Zachary Lopez, Karra Nam, Patrick O’Luanaigh and Zoe Wozniak), dressed in loose garments by Ailsa Paterson that add momentum to their movements, divide and recombine in different formations.
Sebastian Geilings. Photo: Morgan Sette. Daniel Riley plays with visual textures that have a visceral edge—from ethereal smoke that can be both beautiful and menacing, to a sheet of black fabric that introduces clean lines or a tortured, twisted body depending on how it is used. Marrow hits its peak as the dancers torture the fabric, binding it with plastic ties and hanging it from a hook while the soundtrack blasts a loud, discordant screech (as a middle-aged person, I wished I’d brought some concert earplugs). Then silence, as Karra Nam rescues the form, gently flattens it back out and cleanses it with smoke. The juxtaposition of this mournful, silent movement after the propulsive dance hits hard.
ADT Ensemble. Photo: Morgan Sette. Rooted in ritual and born from the defeat of the Voice to Parliament, Marrow carries layers of meaning and emotion—from our divided society to the pain we cause others and how this pain is taken back out into the world. But for all the anger within its beats, you don’t leave feeling enraged or berated—you leave feeling a sadness. As Nam storms off the stage while the others keep dancing, our eyes are drawn back to the wren on the branch—a symbol with added layers of meaning that you might not at first expect (definitely check out the digital program for more).
Marrow has something to say, and it does so with clarity, but even the message doesn’t upstage the work on stage. Riley and the ensemble create ever-evolving pieces of visual art that are exciting to watch in the moment and will stay with you long after.
Blue Fairy Wren made by Ninian Donald. Photo: Morgan Sette. -
Koreaboo (Griffin) ★★★
Written by Michelle Lim Davidson. Griffin Theatre Company. Belvoir Downstairs. 14 Jun – 20 Jul, 2025.
Griffin’s nomadic Grand Tour of Sydney venues continues with Koreaboo setting up shop in Belvoir’s downstairs theatre, usually the home of Belvoir’s 25a programme. It’s interesting to see the space used for a grander, if still very intimate, production.
Hannah (Michelle Lim Davidson) has flown to South Korea to see her birth mother (Heather Jeong). After their first reunion last year, Hannah wants to spend time with the mother she never knew and form a new bond but her mother, her Umma, feels less enthused. She works all day, every day, in the 24hr Mart she owns and runs, but Hannah starts to suspect that her reticence stems less from the awkward language barrier and more from their separate pasts. Thankfully, they find common ground in the world of K-Pop.
Heather Jeong & Michelle Lim Davidson. Photo: Brett Boardman. Koreaboo plays out like a two-handed sitcom. Expect silly laughs served with a side of hammy, or should that be “spam-my”, acting. It’s not my favourite kind of theatrical comedy, but others obviously enjoyed the clearly signposted punchlines much more than I did. Personally, the silliness and inorganic acting undermined the mother/daughter story, which felt all talk and no genuine heart. The text contained emotion, but I just didn’t care about these plastic caricatures.
Meanwhile, Davidson’s script impresses. Drawing from her own experience, it’s both broad and fun, while also packed with the specific details that make a play feel real and lived-in. Even when the plot mechanics felt obvious, it was fun to watch the story unfold and discover the gems in the dialogue. My only gripe comes from a moment of narration near the play’s end that felt unnecessary.
Michelle Lim Davidson & Heather Jeong. Photo: Brett Boardman. As you’d expect from a Griffin production, the technical aspects shine. Kate Baldwin’s lighting design adds moments of whimsy that bring extra life to Mel Page’s busy and deep design work. The costumes are a delight.
So chalk this one up to just not being my personal cup of tea — as is the case with many broad comedies. It may not be for me, but there’s certainly a lot to appreciate here. The show has racked up plenty of four-star reviews, so check it out for yourself and see.
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Blackbird (KXT on Broadway) ★★★
Written by David Harrower. HER Productions. KXT on Broadway. 25 Jun – 5 Jul, 2025.
David Harrower’s acclaimed, intense 2005 play, Blackbird, won’t be for everyone. It’s a complex tale of child sexual abuse that plunges into murky emotional waters. I understand why performers are drawn to it, but some audiences may find it difficult to watch.
Una (Charlotte De Wit) has ambushed Ray (Phil McGrath) at his workplace. They haven’t seen each other in 15 years. Ray has moved on, changed his name, and started a new life. Una, however, remains fixated on their shared past, obsessing over details he wants to leave behind. When she was only 12, Ray had sex with her. Now, after he served a prison sentence, she is forcing him to confront the past once again.
Charlotte De Wit & Phil McGrath. Photo: Ravyna Jassani. Harrower’s script is a knotty affair, exploring the grey areas of a situation many see as simply black and white. While Ray’s criminality is never in doubt, his motivations—and our assumptions—are questioned. Una, too, is a tangle of conflicting impulses, which steer the story through unexpected twists. It’s a smart, well-structured narrative, and it’s easy to see why it has been praised across Europe and America.
Charlotte De Wit & Phil McGrath. Photo: Ravyna Jassani. Although the play is relatively short (just 75 minutes) it can feel longer. This is partly due to the static staging, set in a bland, generic office common room, and partly because of the heavy subject matter. Despite the script’s dynamism, this production struggles to capture its nuance. The performances and direction lack the subtlety needed to fully reveal the humanity of these psychologically complex characters. Both are deeply scarred by their pasts, wrestling with confusing and conflicting desires. Some moments in the third act seem designed merely to shock and are telegraphed too far in advance.
Nonetheless, this is powerful material that dares to get messy and push the audience into uncomfortable territory. It’s a bold script that rewards engagement, even if this particular production doesn’t quite reach the heights of the text.
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Primary Trust (Ensemble) ★★★½
Written by Eboni Booth. Ensemble Theatre. 19 Jun – 12 Jul, 2025.
Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Primary Trust takes us inside the mind of a man gradually confronting the trauma life has handed him, and learning when to let go of the coping mechanisms that have become crutches.
Kenneth (Albert Mwangi) sits in his favourite tiki bar, sipping mai tais with his best friend Bert (Charles Allen). The staff at Wally’s give him odd looks sometimes, but he’s been going there every day for happy hour, sitting in the back, for years. Kenneth is upfront with the audience: Bert is imaginary. The staff only see him sitting at a table, talking and laughing to himself. One day, he starts a conversation with a new waitress, Corina (Angela Mahlatjie), and maybe, just maybe, he’s about to make his first friend IRL.
Charles Allen, Albert Mwangi, Angela Mahlatjie & Peter Kowitz. Photo: Prudence Upton. I usually roll my eyes at the mawkish sentimentality of American plays, but I’ll confess that Primary Trust got to me despite myself. As Kenneth begins to open up to the people around him — Corina and his new boss, played by Peter Kowitz — the shift from his assured private mental world (talking to the audience and bantering with Bert) to forming real connections is a rough journey.
Charles Allen & Albert Mwangi. Photo: Prudence Upton. Booth keeps things tight, avoiding lazy dramatics in favour of character work. Mwangi is almost too charming as Kenneth, who is prone to panic attacks and fits of rage. It’s only around the calm, assured presence of Bert that he ever finds peace. Their relationship is fascinatingly complex. Despite being a figment of Kenneth’s subconscious, Bert feels fully realised thanks to Charles Allen’s performance.
The real MVP of the show is Angela Mahlatjie, who plays not just Corina but a dozen other waitstaff and sundry characters. It’s comedic, yet fully satisfying — one of the most fun performances I’ve seen this year.
Albert Mwangi & Angela Mahlatjie. Photo: Prudence Upton. The most surprising thing about Primary Trust is how much dramatic tension it sustains in a play where, well, not much happens. In this world, small shifts in personality take on tectonic significance. There’s a comfortable security to the play’s construction. We begin with a monologue telling us that in fifteen years, all the places mentioned will be levelled for new apartments. The very presence and wisdom of Bert symbolise Kenneth’s healing subconscious. Despite the setbacks, you know Kenneth is going to be okay. Rather than robbing the play of tension, this sense of safety allows you to fully invest in Kenneth’s journey. This is a feel-good story of healing, told in retrospect.
Leaving the Ensemble, I felt a warm rush of melancholy and peace. I’d just spent a tight 90 minutes on a journey that left me a bit sad, a bit happy, and ready to face the world outside the theatre’s walls.
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Instructions for Correct Assembly (Flight Path) ★★★½
Written by Thomas Eccleshare. Clock & Spiel Productions. Flight Path Theatre. 25 Jun – 5 Jul, 2025.
Parenting is hard. But what if you could build the perfect child from scratch and program it as you go? Instructions for Correct Assembly imagines a world of IKEA-style convenience, where artificial offspring are delivered flat-packed and ready to construct. Offering a fresh lens on the challenges of real-life parenting it makes you wonder, what if humans were as easy to reprogram as machines?
Jane Wallace & Nick Curnow. Photo: Patrick Phillips. Hari (Nick Curnow) is thrilled to share his latest impulse buy with his wife, Max (Jane Wallace). A chronic DIY enthusiast, he’s ordered a top of the line android S.O.N. named Jån (Ben Chapple), to build in the garage. But this isn’t just another gadget. Hari and Max have styled Jån to look uncannily like their deceased son, Nick. And soon they realise Jån, just like Nick, is far harder to program than expected.
The best science fiction holds up a mirror to our world, reflecting our humanity through the strange and unfamiliar, whether it’s Star Trek, Black Mirror, or Severance. Instructions for Correct Assembly turns that mirror on family life, exploring the tension and tenderness of close relationships and the desire to perfect what can’t be controlled.
Nick Curnow, Ben Chapple & Jane Wallace. Photo: Patrick Phillips. As we discover through flashbacks, for this family things fell apart when Nick went to university and started using drugs. It was a cycle they could never break, but in Jån they see a way to fill the gap in their lives and somehow undo the errors of the past.
Eccleshare’s script, relocated from the UK to Australia, is delivered by a strong cast—most notably Ben Chapple, whose dual performance as Jån and Nick is compelling. By giving Jån a slightly more childlike tone (without going full robot), Chapple makes the distinction between the two characters clear, despite minimal changes in appearance.
Jane Wallace & Nick Curnow. Photo: Patrick Phillips. Curnow and Wallace carry much of the emotional weight as grieving parents striving for a second chance. Their mission—to correct past mistakes by raising a flawless replica of their son—adds depth and poignancy to a plot that sometimes feels overstated or stretched.
They’re supported by David Allsopp, Jacki Mison, and Kyra Belford-Thomas as well-meaning family friends (and subtle social rivals). Their high-achieving daughter, Amy (Belford-Thomas), becomes an unintentional source of pressure for Hari and Max.
Kyra Belford-Thomas, Jacki Mison, David Allsopp, Jane Wallace, Ben Chapple & Nick Curnow. Photo: Patrick Phillips. While the premise is clever and full of potential, the writing often feels unfocused with scenes that struggle to get to the heart of the matter. A run of very short, early scenes, broken up by lengthy blackouts & set changes, disrupts the pacing. Jokes are repeated and at times, I found myself wondering, “Would an android really say that?” do the degree that it started to pull me out of the emotional drama. Instructions for Correct Assembly takes a bit too long to find its rhythm, and then doesn’t quite know when to stop. The final few scenes blur the message rather than sharpen it.
Still, the heart of this production lies in three excellent central performances. Curnow, Wallace, and Chapple bring warmth and humanity to a story built on artificial parts. Their final scene together is quietly devastating.
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Coriolanus (Bell Shakespeare) ★★★★
Written by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Neilson Nutshell. 20 Jun – 19 Jul, 2025.
Bell Shakespeare strikes gold with their timely staging of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, only the second time it has been produced in the company’s history.
Rome is in turmoil as famine grips the republic, and the upper-class patricians and working-class plebeians are turning on each other. Meanwhile, a neighbouring tribe, the Volscians, is rising up against Rome. Into the fray steps war general Caius Martius (Hazem Shammas). After turning back the Volscians, he is renamed Coriolanus, after the Volscian city of Corioli that he captures. The patricians urge him to run for consul, but to win the votes he must gain favour with the plebeians whom he openly despises. When two plebeian tribunes, Brutus (Marco Chiappi) and Sicinius (Matilda Ridgway), stir up the people against him and conspire to have him exiled, Coriolanus is enraged. Turning his fury on Rome, he joins forces with the very Volscians he once defeated to mount an attack on the city.
Peter Carroll, Brigid Zegeni, Hazem Shammas, Suzannah McDonald & Gareth Reeves. Photo: Brett Boardman. While Coriolanus may be a relative stranger to Australian stages, it’s received considerable attention in the UK, with recent major productions starring Tom Hiddleston and David Oyelowo — both critically acclaimed. So it makes sense that Bell Shakespeare has spiced up their season with this bloody political drama. The rise of overly emotional autocrats in the real world certainly doesn’t hurt either.
You know you’re in safe hands with Shakespeare’s text when the likes of Peter Carroll (as elder patrician Menenius), Brigid Zengeni (as Coriolanus’ mother Volumnia), and Marco Chiappi (as tribune Brutus) take the stage. With a cast this strong — including Anthony Taufa, Suzannah McDonald, Septimus Caton, Gareth Reeves and Jules Billington — Shammas has the space to make Coriolanus a deeply unlikeable protagonist we can’t wait to see fail.
Matilda Ridgeway & Marco Chiappi. Photo: Brett Boardman. There’s no love lost for the haughty patrician class who seek to push and manipulate the people, but things aren’t as cut and dried as good versus evil. Carroll’s Menenius delivers withering lines about the rabble-rousing tribunes, as both sides wield populism in a bid for control. This morally murky play offers no admirable heroes — even if you sympathise with the plebeians, you’ll still shake your head at their giddy overreach.
Peter Evans directs this traverse production as a constantly shifting balance of control. The simple set features a moving platform the cast slides up and down the space, adding dynamic movement and weight. Location names are projected onto the floor in animated text transitions, filling the room with motion even when the stage stands still.
Septimus Caton, Hazem Shammas, Peter Carroll, Gareth Reeves, Matilda Ridgeway & Marco Chiappi. Photo: Brett Boardman. But don’t assume this is a Shakespearean tragedy full of doom and gloom. While, yes, there are plenty of deaths, Evans and the cast find moments of levity and comedy. Jules Billington opens the show with a brisk pre-show talk and Acknowledgement of Country that is both educational and inviting.
If I had to pick a fault, the only moment that didn’t quite ring true for me was [spoiler alert, BTW] Coriolanus’ eleventh-hour change of heart. I just didn’t buy that he cared enough about his wife and mother to be swayed from his prideful anger.
After a few years of relying on the big-hitting classics, it’s refreshing to see Bell Shakespeare bringing us one of the Bard’s lesser-staged works. While I could happily go a few years without seeing another Hamlet, Macbeth, or Romeo & Juliet, I definitely want more of these relative rarities.
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Being Alive: The Music of Stephen Sondheim (Hayes) ★★★
Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Hayes Theatre Company. 25 Jun – 12 Jul, 2025.
Being Alive, the new Sondheim revue at the Hayes Theatre, pulls together a quixotic assortment of the great man’s tunes – from fan favourites to some more obscure entries – to explore the broad strokes of life.
Raphael Wong, Blazey Best, Lincoln Elliot & Kala Gare. Photo: John McRae. Despite having overseen a number of revues of his own material, the majority of Sondheim’s songs are notoriously ill-suited to cabaret presentations – the lyrics are usually so tightly tied to specific plots and characters that they make little sense outside their original shows. As such, large chunks of Being Alive are aimed squarely at musical theatre fans who need no introduction to the plot mechanics of songs like “Color and Light” (Sunday in the Park with George), “The Ballad of Guiteau” (Assassins), “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Ocean” or “Someone in a Tree” (Pacific Overtures).
Highlights of the night include a new boy-band-infused arrangement of “Losing My Mind / You Could Drive a Person Crazy” (Follies & Company) that will delight or infuriate with its sheer cheek, a melancholic blend of weepies “Send in the Clowns / Not While I’m Around” (A Little Night Music & Sweeney Todd), and a terrific rendition of “The Gun Song” (Assassins).
Raphael Wong & Kala Gare. Photo: John McRae. Raphael Wong’s sonorous baritone is an easy standout among this excellent cast of four (it’s great to hear him tackle more challenging music than his show-stealing turn in Sister Act: The Musical). Lincoln Elliott’s voice has the kind of crisp specificity required to handle Sondheim’s trickier lyrics. Blazey Best, no stranger to bringing the house to tears with Sondheim’s songs, hits the peaks with “Witch’s Lament” (Into the Woods). Kala Gare is slightly underserved in the shuffle, but shines with the titular “Being Alive” (Company).
Things get rockier whenever the music stops. Between songs, we’re given a string of oblique literary quotes about humanity—from Carl Jung to Ursula K. Le Guin. These syrupy, self-serious moments clash awkwardly with hammy attempts at comedy. It’s the show’s weakest element by far. The lack of a set or costume designer is obvious and keenly felt; the staging is clearly in need of some love and attention. Being Alive would have worked far better as a simple concert performance.
Blazey Best & Lincoln Elliot. Photo: John McRae. Thankfully the onstage talents and the power of Stephen Sondheim’s storytelling are first class. We will be forever grateful that Sondheim left behind a legacy of exquisite, insightful, challenging, and richly textured works for us to pore over. When even his notorious flops, like Merrily We Roll Along, can be reinvented into award-winning gold, and his more obscure shows contain musical gems, Sondheim’s place on the musical theatre pedestal is assured.
Now we just need a Hayes production of Passion… oh, and Road Show… and an Australian premiere of Here We Go… and the gender-flipped Company… and a revival of Assassins…
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The Play That Goes Wrong (Sydney Opera House) ★★★½
Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields. Mischief Theatre. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. 19 Jun – 3 Aug, 2025 then touring nationally.
Slapstick supergroup Mischief Theatre’s original hit is back in Aus. The Play That Goes Wrong has grown from fringe breakthrough to theatrical staple, and now, the 13-year-old comedy is proving that simple gags are timeless.
If you’ve never been to a production by the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, you’re in for a treat, as this accident-prone amateur theatre troupe gives more than their share of blood, sweat and tears—simply because the show must go on. As they attempt to stage a production of The Murder at Haversham Manor (a pseudo-Agatha-Christie murder mystery), well, things go wrong…
Joe Kosky, Brodie Masini & Stephanie Astrid John. Photo: Jordan Munns. I must confess, every time I sit down to watch an Agatha Christie play (be it the recent Robin Nevin-directed The Mousetrap and And Then There Were None, or the work of Sydney’s beloved Genesian Theatre), I think about The Play That Goes Wrong. It so perfectly skewers the tropes of the genre and the quirks of a small theatre company. If you’ve ever spent time in the world of community or amateur dramatics, you’ll know what I mean. This show-within-a-show is littered with familiar types—from the pompous over-actor, the constantly posing actress, the neophyte mugging for easy applause, the forgetful cast member sneakily reading his lines off his palm, to the one-man actor/director/producer trying to hold it all together while staying in character. Wobbly sets and glimpses of backstage crew included.
Olivia Charalambous & Tom Hayward. Photo: Jordan Munns. The Play That Goes Wrong lives in the shadow of Michael Frayn’s immortal backstage classic Noises Off, but it swaps that play’s intricate backstories and rivalries for oodles of ever-escalating physical comedy. Nigel Hook’s original set design is a wonder of hidden tricks, and original director Mark Bell made the madness look easy.
This local cast all have fantastic moments to shine amid the careful chaos. Jonathan Martin is a rock as the stressed/manic director/star/producer Chris, always trying to smile through gritted teeth. Joe Kosky’s Robert delivers one of the best physical comedy moments as he clings onto furniture for dear life. And Sebastiano Pitruzzello, in the crowd-pleasing role of the shy-but-loving-it Max, earns his rounds of applause.
Jonathan Martin. Photo: Jordan Munns. The danger for all long-running shows is that they start to get a bit tired, and you run the risk that subsequent casts—playing a copy of a copy of the original performance—lose the apparent spontaneity that’s central to the humour. And I must confess, that does happen here. We’re now so far removed from the original creators and actors that the performances have lost that sliver of authentic heart. For me, the real success of Mischief Theatre was their ability to create realistic(-ish) enough characters, then pile a farcical amount of pressure on them and watch them react. Currently, there’s a lot of big acting happening, but less genuine reacting—which robs the comedy of some of its depth.
The Play That Goes Wrong has “good bones”, as they say, and is a guaranteed laugh (especially after a wine or two on a cold Sydney winter night). As I find myself hunkering down and comfort-watching favourite TV shows, it’s nice to do the same with theatre—to settle back with a show you already know will deliver a hilarious night out.
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