Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Aug 9 – 27, 2023
Playwright: Miranda Michalowski
Director: LJ Wilson
Cast: Mym Kwa, Lucy Burke, Candice Mejias, Brandon Scane
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review

Joey and Sam are besties at high school, both girls demonstrating excellent control over their bodies when rehearsing with their dance team, but who are only now starting to negotiate their personal autonomies, in a world that never really knows how to deal with sexual agency in young women. Saturday Girls by Miranda Michalowski offers a look at the awkward years, of teenagers trying to own their sexualities, before understanding any of the complexities involved. It is a humorous work, in a style more appropriate for younger audiences perhaps, with good attempts at exploring the deeper dimensions of adolescence, from a burgeoning writer who is evidently, and rightly, still bewildered by adulthood.

Teenage clumsiness is portrayed with accuracy by director LJ Wilson, who renders for every character an earnest innocence, alongside a comedy that is somewhat trite in approach, although school-age viewers could very well relate to a tone of performance, that some of the older generations find alienating.

Set design by Soham Apte features a simple but elegant representation of the gym where Joey and Sam spend their time, with ample space to accommodate all manner of creative physical configurations. Esther Zhong’s costumes are attentive to the personality types being depicted, and protective of the bodies being put under scrutiny. Lights by Aron Murray and sound by Sam Cheng are helpful in conveying tonal shifts in the storytelling, but would benefit from being slightly less predictable in approach.

Joey and Sam are played by Lucy Burke and Mym Kwa respectively, both actors displaying admirable commitment to the cause, and highly convincing as Year 10 students at a difficult stage of being neither children nor adults. Supporting players Candice Mejias and Brandon Scane bring wonderful playfulness to Saturday Girls, vibrant but also considered, in their expressions of youthful folly.

It takes time to become a woman. One needs to learn about all the ways she is vulnerable, in a world that has for centuries relegated her as inferior, and therefore available to be exploited, used and abused. We protect our children, but are terrified that they may learn the truth of what we are protecting them from. They are therefore subject to a long sequence of awakenings, that are sobering and enraging, but also at times, pleasurable. There seems no easy way. For as long as we insist on bringing life into existence, innocence will be ravaged, but we remain hopeful that their time on this plane will somehow be better.

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