Venue: Hayes Theatre Co (Potts Point NSW), Apr 10 – May 10, 2026
Creators: Anthony King, Scott Brown
Director: Richard Carroll
Cast: Stephen Anderson, Ryan González
Images by John McRae
Theatre review
Bud and Doug are conducting a backer’s audition—a hallowed, anxiety-drenched ritual of the American theatre—to an intimate assembly that they pray includes angel investors with Broadway connections. That these two hope to leap from this modest presentation to the Great White Way represents either breathtaking entrepreneurial courage or delusional hubris; in the delicious friction between those poles lies the show’s particular charm. Conceived two decades ago by Anthony King and Scott Brown, Gutenberg! The Musical! operates on a deceptively slender premise, its book and lyrics unremarkable on the page. Yet as Richard Carroll’s production demonstrates, material that reads as slight becomes transcendent when filtered through the alchemy of exacting performance.
This is camp elevated to high art—unapologetically exuberant, intellectually irreverent, and executed with rigorous precision masquerading as spontaneity. Stephen Anderson and Ryan González navigate the two-hander format with such virtuosic ease that they effectively erase the text’s deficiencies through the sheer force of their charisma. They possess that rarest of theatrical gifts: the ability to make the audience complicit in the illusion, transforming spectators into enthusiastic conspirators. Their technical proficiency—vocally immaculate, comically razor-sharp—serves a deeper purpose: they convince us that Bud and Doug’s quixotic dream deserves to succeed, if only because the passion propelling it is so infectious.
They receive impeccable support from Zara Stanton, whose work at the keyboard as accompanist and music director provides more than musical infrastructure; her presence completes the trio with an understated wit that mirrors the leads’ symbiotic rapport. Shannon Burns’ choreography excavates humour from physicality, generating kinetic comedy within the stringent limitations of the space—proving that inventive staging requires merely bodies in motion, not architectural spectacle. Lochie Odgers’ scenic design and Lily Mateljan’s costumes embrace aesthetic economy not as constraint but as dramaturgical choice, authentically evoking the scrambled, duct-taped urgency of fledgling theatrical development. Only Veronique Benett’s lighting design luxuriates in complexity; her dynamic, intricate compositions assert the transformative power of illumination when other visual elements remain deliberately, appropriately threadbare.
The production invites a familiar meditation: musical theatre depends upon entertainers who can suspend disbelief through sheer force of personality, and we are rightfully grateful for the ephemeral wonders they bestow. Yet Gutenberg! The Musical! also underscores the distinction between the immediate gratification of laughter and the lingering resonance of meaning. The evening delivers the former in abundance; whether it transcends into the latter remains debatable. Still, if laughter proves the best medicine, then this production administers a potent dosage, leaving its audience indisputably invigorated—if not permanently altered—by the encounter.
Suzy Goes See 