Review: Gravity (Qtopia)

Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Nov 12 – 29, 2025
Playwright: Bradford Elmore
Director: Anthony Skuse
Cast: Wesley Senna Cortes, Annabelle Kablean, Drew Wilson
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
Christopher is sleeping with David, which is a problem because he lives firmly in the heteronormative world and remains deeply in love with his wife, Heather. The late discovery of his bisexuality is proving highly inconvenient, especially in a milieu where monogamy is the norm and hearts shatter at the faintest whiff of infidelity. In Gravity, Bradford Elmore charts a double-pronged coming out: a man who finds himself unexpectedly same-sex attracted, and simultaneously yearning for a polyamorous life. Elmore’s play is sensitively rendered and undeniably thoughtful, but its narrative ultimately drifts in circles, its ideas stagnating and looping without sufficient progression.

Direction by Anthony Skuse is deeply respectful of the experiences being depicted, perhaps a touch too solemn for a story that is ultimately not all that heavy. His set design mirrors his directorial sensibility—elegant, measured, and marked by a tasteful restraint. James Wallis’ lighting is a quiet triumph, infusing the staging with a tender, luminous beauty. The cast of three deliver focused, committed performances, though their occasional drift into melodrama feels misplaced. A sharper vein of humour would have gone a long way toward making the production a more engaging and dynamic watch.

People cannot help how they fall in love, and Christopher’s story reminds us that what is utterly natural becomes endlessly tangled by societal norms. Gravity reveals how the lives we imagine for ourselves are so often built on fanciful ideals and inherited conventions. Humans struggle to simply let things be; we push against our own nature, believing our choices to be rational, even as they lead us down winding, fruitless paths. The place where Christopher finally arrives should always have been clear, yet it seems we must wander through frustration and heartache before recognising the truths that were quietly waiting for us all along.

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