Review: Goodnight Sweet Prince (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Jul 31 – Aug 15, 2026
Playwright: William Shakespeare (an adaption of Hamlet by Liesel Badorrek, Raj Labade, Jack Twelvetree)
Director: Liesel Badorrek
Cast: Raj Labade, Jack Twelvetree
Images by Campbell Parsons

Theatre review
Goodnight Sweet Prince offers a seventy-minute distillation of Hamlet, gathering the play’s most searing moments of introspection into a concentrated portrait of psychological unravelling. Yet in privileging the prince’s interiority, the adaptation strips away Shakespeare’s chiaroscuro—the interplay of levity and darkness, of courtly intrigue and metaphysical dread—leaving behind something closer to a single-note meditation on grief.

Liesel Badorrek’s direction sustains a formidable emotional pitch, executed with considerable polish. The result, however, is a production that feels curiously remote: relentlessly intense yet strangely unaffecting, as though the audience were observing anguish through reinforced glass.

Keerthi Subramanyam’s set design finds poetry in ruin. Drawing on the internal dilapidation of Shakespeare’s characters, the staging evokes decay with arresting beauty—flickers of faded grandeur and decadent ornamentation lending the production a visual richness that partially compensates for its emotional austerity.

Verity Hampson’s lighting is exuberantly theatrical, responding to the text’s most dramatic registers with bold, heightened imagery. Ross Johnston’s sound design is similarly ambitious, tracking every cadence of the abridged script with almost forensic attention. The score works so diligently to underscore each emotional beat that it threatens to become a co-narrator, at times articulating as much of the story as the words themselves.

Raj Labade brings formidable concentration and raw feeling to the title role; his Hamlet is never less than utterly committed. Yet the compression of the text ultimately estranges us from the very suffering it seeks to dramatise. We recognise the authenticity of the anguish without being invited to share it. Jack Twelvetree moves with remarkable ease between Horatio and an array of supporting characters, his versatility shining through in sharply differentiated performances that lend the production welcome breadth and texture.

There is, finally, the question of relevance. It grows increasingly difficult to locate our sympathies within the precincts of royalty; the historical convention of identifying with kings and queens now feels almost exotic. Suffering may be universal, but our compassion need not be indiscriminate. Perhaps there is a quiet liberation in withholding our empathy from those whose privilege has been maintained, across generations, at the cost of so many others’ disadvantage.

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.instagram.com/goodnightsweetprinceplay

Review: Bennelong In London (Sydney Theatre Company)

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Venue: Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company (Walsh Bay NSW), Jul 18 – Aug 16, 2026
Playwright: Jane Harrison
Director: Ian Michael
Cast: Googoorewon Knox, Guy Simon
Images by Daniel Boud

Theatre review
An actor preparing to audition for the role of Bennelong—that celebrated Aboriginal diplomat from the turbulent dawn of colonisation—finds himself doing more than rehearsing lines. In the quiet of his living room, he summons the historical figure into startling, flesh-and-blood existence. What follows is a conversation across centuries: the ancestor clarifying his legacy, the actor grappling to comprehend it from a vantage point more than two hundred years removed.

Jane Harrison’s Bennelong in London is a work of remarkable intellectual architecture—thoroughly researched, astutely considered—yet it never sacrifices emotional immediacy for scholarly rigour. From a contemporary Aboriginal perspective, it interrogates Aboriginality and colonialism with clear-eyed acknowledgment of the endlessly complex entanglements that define life on colonised Indigenous lands. The play holds space for contradiction: the difficulty of honouring the past while pressing forward into the present, all the while remaining unflinching about the injustices visited upon this country’s rightful custodians. Though its themes run deep and serious, the work brims with humour, much of it arising from the friction between two men separated by epochs yet thrown together in intimate proximity.

Director Ian Michael handles this tonal balancing with supreme deftness, blending levity and sorrow in an exploration of identity and legacy that speaks as urgently to First Nations peoples today as it does to settlers. The emotional texture of the storytelling finds especially potent expression in James Peter Brown’s music, whether threading subtly beneath the action or rising to prominence as a centrepiece of the staging. Brown’s compositions pull the audience deep into the work’s intense sentimentality, rendering abstract historical grief into something viscerally moving.

Trent Suidgeest’s lighting design carries us fluidly between realism and the fantastical, lending credibility to whichever psychological territory the play chooses to inhabit, while discovering unexpected beauty in the theatrical transformation of an otherwise ordinary domestic space. Emma White’s set ingeniously weaves native flora into a contemporary living room, quietly signalling the duality embedded in everyday life for those negotiating Indigeneity amid persistent colonising forces. Her costumes, by contrast, adopt a more straightforward approach—two men from different centuries, simply dressed, simply meeting.

Googoorewon Knox is endlessly likeable as Bennelong, his charisma matched by a musicality that proves invaluable whenever the performance shifts into more traditional registers. Some of his storytelling occasionally lacks vividness—certain historical details risk being lost in the telling—yet the power of his ancestral invocation remains beyond question. Equally spirited is Guy Simon as the modern-day Aboriginal man seeking a history that is at once intimately personal and consequentially vast. The grace with which Simon pivots between lightness and gravity throughout the piece is genuinely astonishing, and his ability to bring such unguarded earnestness to this vital story feels especially precious in these cynical times.

Like every colonised being, Bennelong could only do his best within circumstances engineered for destruction. We might hope to resist with heroism, or at least to survive with grace, but the truth is more humbling: the everyday negotiations with pervasive, malicious systems of exploitation mean we will often fall short. Bennelong was far from perfect, yet we can see precisely why—and we can carry that understanding forward as inspiration, strengthening how we regard ourselves and one another in the ongoing, unfinished work of decolonisation.

www.sydneytheatre.com.au

Review: Pride & Prejudice (Sort Of) (Sydney Opera House)

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Venue: Sydney Opera House (Sydney NSW), Jul 16 – Aug 30, 2026
Playwright: Isobel McArthur (after Jane Austen)
Director: Simon Harvey
Cast: Zoe Ioannou, Amy Lehpamer, Kaori Maeda Judge, Ruby Shannon, Teo Vergara
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
It is the old story, but told through five servants who have witnessed everything in absolute, unbroken silence. Pride & Prejudice (sort of) by Isobel McArthur arrives dressed as a theatrical reframing of the Austen novel, its dialogue translated into contemporary vernacular.

Yet for all the surface disruption, the narrative itself remains largely untouched. When the women from downstairs first appear, one anticipates a recalibration—characters and incidents seen from below, sharpened by resentment or envy. Instead, we receive the same familiar tale delivered through a more economical mechanism: five performers assuming every role.

Simon Harvey’s direction moves at a brisk clip, infusing the piece with a mischievous energy that carries much of the humour. Songs punctuate the storytelling, though the choice of largely 1980s hits for 1813 teenagers playing to a 2026 audience creates a curious dissonance. These young women are neither faithful period renderings nor convincing modern types; they are not of the Regency era, yet they are not quite of ours either.

The performers, however, are uniformly excellent—skilful, personable, and resourceful. Their chemistry is palpable, the rhythm they establish lending the production a polished, self-assured momentum. Their playfulness generates genuine laughter, even when the writing itself falls short.

There is, after all, a particular pleasure in laughing at the upper echelons—their concerns trivial, their constitutions fragile. We instinctively believe our own burdens weightier, our resilience greater, and take quiet satisfaction in their ineptitude. The servants of the Bennets, Bingleys, and Darcys would surely have offered observations far more incisive, far more savagely funny. That we do not hear them suggests some of us remain reluctant to listen to voices from below even Austen’s own.

www.goodingproductions.com | www.woodwardproductions.com

Review: Dealing With Clair (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Jul 10 – 25, 2026
Playwright: Martin Crimp
Director: Harry Reid
Cast: Arkia Ashraf, Bayley Prendergast, Daniel Fletcher, Jade Fuda, Olivia Hall-Smith, Talia Benatar
Images by Robert Miniter

Theatre review
It is 1986, and Clair is an ambitious young woman navigating London’s cutthroat real estate market, hell-bent on carving out a better life for herself. While showing a property, she encounters James, a man of apparent means who claims he is ready to buy—yet something about him lingers just beyond the edge of trust. Martin Crimp’s Dealing with Clair is rooted in a true story that once dominated British headlines, written for an audience who lived through its cultural aftershocks. Four decades later, and half a world away, the play still coheres for audiences who know nothing of the original scandal, though many of its finer social nuances inevitably fade in transit.

Director Harry Reid renders the central narrative lucid and gripping; the psychological chess match between Clair and James remains genuinely compelling. It is the surrounding scenes, however, that falter. Supporting characters appear designed to refract the social climate of the era, yet much of that commentary dissipates before it can land.

Daniel Fletcher delivers a superbly cunning James, skirting the line between earnest charm and quiet menace to create a villain who is both repellent and comprehensible. We despise him, yet we fully understand how Clair could be so thoroughly undone. Opposite him, Olivia Hall-Smith gives Clair a bright, infectious gregariousness that makes her ambition visible and visceral; we see the hunger for success that drives her to take reckless risks. Hall-Smith also threads a subtle innocence through the performance, a quiet suggestion of how modern capitalism preys upon the young, extracting sacrifices they could never have imagined.

Visually, the production is modest but serviceable. Soham Apte’s set is nimble and efficient, shifting locations without the drag of scene changes. Larisha Dowson-Taylor’s costumes largely succeed in transporting us back in time, though the supporting cast could use sharper visual signifiers to clarify who they represent within social dynamics of the time. Izzy Morrissey’s lighting deftly pivots between naturalism and heightened drama, lending the production an occasional, welcome jolt of theatrical intensity. The sound design, credited to Reid, is notably spare; a more aggressive sonic landscape would have done much to amplify the tension inherent in this disturbing tale.

Forty years on, one might hope that workplaces have grown safer for women, yet the truth is that most professional environments were built by and for men. We have spent decades retrofitting these spaces to accommodate broader participation, but we remain trapped in the architecture of an unjust foundation. Problems will continue to surface, and we will be forced to address each new iteration as it arises—because tearing it all down and starting over, it seems, remains beyond our reach.

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.instagram.com/irregularprogramming.inc

Review: The Addams Family: The Musical (Hayes Theatre)

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Venue: Hayes Theatre Co (Potts Point NSW), Jul 11 – Aug 9, 2026
Book: Marshall Brickman, Rick Elice
Music and Lyrics: Andrew Lippa
Director: Julia Robertson
Cast: Elliot Aitken, Deborah Galanos, Jenny Guigayoma, Erika Heynatz, Evan Lever, Rory O’Keeffe, Georgia Oom, Marcus Rivera, Alexander Tye, Teagan Wouters
Images by James Reiser

Theatre review
Wednesday Addams has invited a young man and his parents to dinner with her famously macabre clan. The Beinekes are devoutly conventional, so Wednesday has extracted solemn promises from everyone to behave, just for one evening. The Addams Family: The Musical does not succeed on the strength of its plotting; rather, it endures through the brilliance of characters first conceived by Charles Addams in 1938 for his single-panel cartoons, and subsequently immortalised through television and film. The book, in truth, frequently falls conspicuously flat, yet the sheer likeability of these iconic figures—combined with Andrew Lippa’s genuinely accomplished songwriting—renders the production a worthwhile entertainment. Director Julia Robertson shapes the material with astute precision, delivering a show that may not provoke uproarious laughter but sustains a steady, pleasurable amusement throughout.

Robertson’s direction is a thorough delight, marrying keen narrative instinct with an impeccable visual sensibility. Dann Barber’s production design is nothing short of spectacular, drawing inspiration from the classic television series to conjure a monochromatic palette that is at once ravishing and mischievous, its whimsy perfectly attuned to the world we are invited to inhabit. Barber’s sets and costumes do not merely trade in nostalgia; they have been thoughtfully modernised, achieving a contemporary inventiveness that proves deeply satisfying. Jasmine Rizk’s lighting maintains the spectral pallor for which the Addamses are renowned, yet remains endlessly dynamic—frequently, and quite unexpectedly, beautiful. Zander Gaal’s musical direction captures the extravagant spirit of these characters with richness and verve, though it is occasionally undermined by sound engineering whose technical execution proves inconsistent.

Among the sixteen-strong cast, several performances distinguish themselves. Erika Heynatz is every inch the vamp we remember Morticia to be, her physicality endlessly idiosyncratic whether centre stage or in the shadows, and she supplies precisely the quotient of camp without which no Addams Family production can survive. Evan Lever’s Uncle Fester is an undeniable scene-stealer; granted the evening’s finest material, he excavates every nuance to leave an indelible impression. Jenny Guigayoma’s Wednesday brings the house down with formidable vocal power, as does Marcus Rivera’s Gomez. Both are technically commanding, yet neither can quite transcend the pedestrian dialogue they are required to navigate.

In 1938, as fascism gathered its dreadful momentum and autocratic ideologies seduced the compliant masses, The Addams Family stood defiantly apart. They remain emblematic of resistance to rigid, polite codes of behaviour founded upon little more than nonsensical logic. The Addamses may revel in the peculiar, but at its heart this is a reach for authenticity—a conviction that we ought to regard convention with suspicion, interrogating what so rarely is, and recognising that it ultimately serves only the privileged few.

www.hayestheatre.com.au | www.jrpaustralia.com

Review: Afterglow (Griffin Theatre Co)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Jul 9 – 25, 2026
Book and Lyrics: Sheanna Parker Russon
Music: Lillian M. Hearne, Sheanna Parker Russon
Directors: Cassie Hamilton, Lily Hayman
Cast: Lincoln Elliott, Cassie Hamilton, Lillian M. Hearne, Nat Jobe, Nic Prior
Images by Lucy Parakhina

Theatre review
Michael and Tom first cross paths at a barbershop quartet convention in 2012, back when the scene remained a strictly male preserve. There is an instant spark between them, yet neither has quite learned to love themself; as a result, they discover they cannot love each other as fully as they had hoped. Sheanna Parker Russon and Lillian M. Hearne’s Afterglow uses romance to explore gender authenticity on an intimate scale, while the competitive barbershop world surrounding it illustrates how gender is performed and policed in social spaces. A comedy musical with plenty of amusing moments and several charming songs, the piece nonetheless struggles to render its characters with sufficient depth; we never quite invest in their journeys, and the plot lurches forward abruptly at times, giving the narrative an occasional air of contrivance.

Directors Hearne and Lily Hayman compensate for the script’s limitations with undeniable verve, yet the production never achieves the crispness that would fully immerse us in the story and its characters. Geita Goarin’s set and costumes, while hardly surprising in their design, competently serve the world and its inhabitants. Tyler Fitzpatrick’s lighting could stand to be more responsive to the characters’ shifting emotional temperatures, though the overall visual quality remains adequate. As musical director, Hearne sets her sights admirably high: with only a keyboard and a cappella voices, she attempts to capture the full complexity of the emotions at play. The ambition is impressive, even if the execution occasionally falls short of its own reach.

Hamilton leads the cast with remarkable exuberance, infusing the proceedings with infectious, indomitable cheer. Nic Prior, playing the more subdued Tom, proves less mischievous but ultimately more convincing, fashioning a character that feels genuinely lived-in. Lincoln Elliott as Matt and Nat Jobe as Rupert also deserve mention; in smaller roles, they supply sharp comic timing and a welcome polish.

In reality, self-acceptance does not resolve everything the moment one arrives at a fuller understanding of gender. Yet it is true that for someone in turmoil over their identity, the world can feel relentlessly dark. When we first meet Michael and Tom, they are still chrysalises; by the final curtain, they seem to emerge complete. The more honest truth, perhaps, is that they have merely found their wings. The real work of learning to fly still lies ahead.

www.griffintheatre.com.au | www.purpletapeproductions.com

Review: Thirty-Six (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Jul 8 – 18, 2026
Playwrights: Jo Clifford, Bayley Turner
Director: Kitan Petkovski
Cast: Bayley Turner
Images by Andrew Kim

Theatre review
Turning thirty-five might ordinarily invite a quiet celebration, but for Bayley Turner, the milestone carries a heavier shadow. The spectre of that oft-cited, entirely unsubstantiated statistic—that trans women seldom live beyond thirty-five—looms over her birthday, colouring the occasion with an unavoidable gravity. Yet the anxieties it stirs are hardly spectral alone; they are tethered to the tangible hardships of trans existence, the material and psychological tolls that accumulate in a world still reluctant to make room.

For all the generations of trans people who have lived, loved, and endured before us, their voices have rarely been granted the platforms or the permanence to offer those who follow something solid to hold onto—reference points, roadmaps, or simply the comfort of being understood. Thirty-Six, the one-woman play Turner has created with her seventy-five-year-old mentor Jo Clifford, arrives as something rare: an intergenerational conversation rendered in performance, giving shape to the sorrow and fear, but also the unexpected joy and stubborn inspiration, of living openly as trans in an era of unprecedented visibility. The work is unflinching in its honesty, and both creators have evidently plumbed its ideas with a depth that leaves few difficult truths unexamined.

If the purpose of art is to haul what remains unsaid into the light, then Thirty-Six is an undeniably significant achievement. Where it falters is in its theatrical imagination: the writing, for all its emotional intelligence, could sit almost as comfortably on the page as it does on the stage. It lacks the particular immediacy that distinguishes drama from literature—those irreplaceable collisions of body, voice, and space that demand live performance.

Fortunately, director Kitan Petkovski intervenes with ingenuity, finding visual textures to animate the monologue and expanding the hour-long staging into something that nearly matches the words in captivation. Spencer Herd’s lighting bathes the space in a warm, flattering glow that never quite lets us forget the melancholy threading beneath; it is an invitation into sentiment without surrendering to it. Aron Murray’s video projections lend variety to the visual landscape, while Jack Burmeister’s score moves nimbly between uplift and sombreness, calibrating atmosphere with a deft hand.

As performer, Turner is a compelling presence—effortlessly charismatic, possessed of a confidence that keeps the audience held close throughout. There is an ease to her delivery that reassures, even if one senses she is capable of still greater dramatic complexity given more demanding material.

The myth of the thirty-five-year lifespan may be exactly that, but the reality it gestures toward is no fiction. Without stable housing, secure employment, adequate healthcare, and communities that sustain rather than isolate, trans lives are routinely foreshortened—made not only harder but often less fully lived. For as long as the standards of care and dignity remain so starkly divided between cis and trans existence, works like Thirty-Six that insist on naming these disparities will remain not merely welcome, but essential.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.instagram.com/apertureprods

Review: Doubt: A Parable (Sydney Theatre Company)

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Venue: Roslyn Packer Theatre (Sydney NSW), Jun 30 – Aug 2, 2026
Playwright: John Patrick Shanley
Director: Marion Potts
Cast: Zindzi Okenyo, Shannen Alyce Quan, Pamela Rabe, Sam Reid
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Sister Aloysius is convinced that Father Flynn has engaged in inappropriate conduct with at least one student at St. Nicholas Church School, and she is determined to see him removed. When Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley premiered in 2004, revelations of sexual abuse and institutional cover-ups within the Catholic Church were dominating headlines around the world. Two decades later, while public attention has shifted to other forms of moral and political failure, the play continues to resonate with an alarming disquiet. Its enduring power lies not only in the persistence of abuse by those in authority, but in the unsettling ease with which certainty is formed without proof, and belief sustained in the absence of evidence.

Under Marion Potts’s direction, however, the production resists becoming an overtly political reading. Instead, it returns the play to its theatrical core: a taut, claustrophobic drama driven by tension, moral ambiguity, and competing convictions. The result is gripping from start to finish, sustaining an atmosphere of mounting unease that keeps the audience in a constant state of uncertainty.

The performances are superb across the board. Pamela Rabe’s Sister Aloysius is steely and unyielding, her severity edged with conviction that is as compelling as it is unsettling. Sam Reid brings a volatile emotional interior to Father Flynn, carefully calibrating warmth and defensiveness in a way that keeps his guilt or innocence deliberately opaque. There is an implied undercurrent of homophobia in the accusations against the priest, and Reid navigates his subplot of resistance with remarkable nuance and power.

As Sister James, Shannen Alyce Quan astonishes with her precision in a complex role that demands multiple shifts in allegiance; she consistently depicts heightened psychological transformations while maintaining a believable naturalism that renders an extremely challenging part utterly convincing. Zindzi Okenyo is unforgettable as Mrs. Muller, bringing fierce tenacity and genuine spirit to this intense production.

Design elements are equally accomplished. Bob Cousin’s set is perfectly proportioned, showcasing austere locations in ways that are as dramaturgically sound as they are visually striking, balancing narrative necessity with a refined sense of theatricality. Damien Cooper’s lighting is subtly rendered, never overreaching in a play that demands visual restraint. Jessica Dunn’s music is a particular highlight; each interlude enhances the emotive qualities of the visceral storytelling, most impressively through the splendid incorporation of live singing by the cast.

It has been nearly two years since seventy-seven million Americans voted to return Donald Trump to the presidency. Despite extensive evidence of misconduct and conviction on multiple felony counts, his political support has remained largely intact, sustained by narratives that persist in defiance of fact. The details differ, but the underlying mechanism feels familiar: certainty without verification, belief hardened against contradiction. In that sense, Doubt remains less a period piece than an unnervingly contemporary one, reflecting how easily blind faith can override evidence, and how costly that substitution can be.

www.sydneytheatre.com.au

Review: The Day Of The Triffids (New Theatre)

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Venue: New Theatre (Newtown NSW), Jun 30 – Jul 25, 2026
Playwright: J. James-Moody (based on the novel by John Wyndham)
Director: J. James-Moody
Cast: James Collins, Claudia Elbourne, Nathan Farrow, Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Kate Mannix, Max Ryan, Umai Shantharajah, Natasha Todd
Images by Chris Lundie

Theatre review
In the wake of a devastating meteor shower that leaves swathes of humanity blind, carnivorous plants known as triffids emerge to prey upon the vulnerable. John Wyndham’s 1952 novel, The Day of the Triffids, is indelibly a product of its time—an era when science fiction writers sought to metabolise the recent trauma of war through allegories of invasion by extraterrestrial or mutated foes, as though mass destruction could only be processed when refracted through the lens of the fantastical.

J. James-Moody’s new stage adaptation nods toward contemporary relevance with scattered technological references, capitalising on the peculiar modern terror of artificial intelligence and the men who orchestrate its proliferation. Yet these gestures feel insufficient; the text remains stubbornly dated, bogged down by protracted exposition that offers the audience few footholds for emotional engagement. We scarcely find ourselves resonating with the narrative or its characters, and the production struggles to inspire genuine sentiment.

Where James-Moody fares considerably better is in his direction. He cultivates a carnival-like atmosphere, alive with mischief and playfulness that wins us over, at least intermittently. The staging abounds with imagination; while this inventiveness certainly entertains, it does little to advance the story with any real purpose.

The design elements, by contrast, are immaculate. Holly Nesbitt’s lighting is dynamic and resourceful, delivering one striking visual tableau after another. Aubtin Namdar’s sound design and music are meticulously calibrated, enriching each scene with atmospheric precision. If the production fails to tell its story with clarity, it nevertheless astonishes with its technical and aesthetic faculties.

James Collins, playing Bill, the biologist navigating the apocalypse, provides a steadying centre—reliable, if never quite commanding. The seven-strong supporting ensemble proves equally personable, rising to the challenge of creating a spirited, occasionally raucous energy, though they never fully seize and hold our attention.

Wyndham’s novel ultimately celebrates the solidarity that can form in resistance to terror. Yet there is something unsettling about characterising the enemy as fundamentally alien—a narrative reflex of the postwar period that now feels increasingly difficult to endorse. Surveying the crises of our own age, one cannot escape the uncomfortable truth that we ourselves are the agents of so much that is destructive, even as we remain among its casualties.

www.newtheatre.org.au

Review: The Dapto Chaser (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jun 29 – Jul 25, 2026
Playwright: Mary Rachel Brown
Director: Anna Houston
Cast: Peter Carroll, Marco Chiappi, André de Vanny, Justin Rosniak
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
The Sinclairs have made a ruin of their lives, pouring everything into the quixotic pursuit of greyhound racing. In Mary Rachel Brown’s The Dapto Chaser, we watch generations of men tether themselves to a fixation they mistake for destiny, convinced that persistence alone will deliver them from their circumstances. To the audience, the arithmetic is mercilessly clear: the house never loses. It is tempting to read their devotion as mere folly, the wages of poor choices. Yet Brown invites us to recognise a more uncomfortable mirror. Most of us may not wager on the dogs, but we commit to capitalism with a comparable fervour, persuaded that the system pays out fairly to those who play by the rules. The truth, of course, is that capital rewards capital; the rest of us navigate by dim light, following the doctrines handed down by those who profit from our faith.

Brown’s play is not, at its core, a political treatise, though it certainly concerns itself with Australian class structures. First and foremost, it is a masterclass in wit, delivered with precision and velocity. The humour, rich in ocker texture, will prove satisfying especially to those who favour that particular style of language. Anna Houston’s direction sharpens the comedy to a needlepoint, mining every beat for maximum effect so that even viewers who find the cultural milieu foreign will be laughing despite themselves. Her attention to dramatic architecture is equally assured, inflating the stakes until they feel perilous, and securing our emotional investment with deceptive ease.

The production design reinforces this immediacy. Simone Romaniuk’s set and costumes evoke poverty not as aestheticised misery but as lived-in dilapidation, telling their own visual story with unflinching honesty. Between scenes, Matt Cox’s lighting and Madeleine Picard’s score seize every opportunity for theatrical flourish, enriching the dramaturgy while lifting the production into something more expansive than naturalism.

At the centre stands Justin Rosniak as Cess, delivering a performance of captivating intensity. His emotional volatility and fearless comic timing ensure we remain locked to the family’s trajectory, finding entertainment and pathos in equal measure. He is ably supported by Peter Carroll, Marco Chiappi, and André de Vanny, all of whom demonstrate the skill this bittersweet comedy demands.

We want the Sinclairs to break their patterns, to glimpse the impossibility of the dreams they have chased for so long. More than that, we are left wondering whether our own capitalistic commitments—to the promises of merit, of fair reward, of the system’s eventual benevolence—are any less delusory than a winning ticket at the track.

www.ensemble.com.au