Tag Archives: ensemble theatre

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.

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Review: The Roommate (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jun 19 – Jul 25, 2026
Playwright: Jen Silverman
Director: Lee Lewis
Cast: Lucy Bell, Belinda Bromilow
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
Sharon, newly divorced, finds herself unmoored—liberated from the obligations of marriage and motherhood yet utterly unprepared for autonomy. Having spent decades in Iowa as wife and mother, she has never cultivated an identity beyond servitude; the sudden absence of duty leaves her not merely free but adrift, hollowed out by a life lived in reflexive deference to others. Into this vacuum steps Robyn, a transplant from New York whose existence—vivid, self-determined, almost voluptuously full—represents a universe Sharon can scarcely comprehend, let alone inhabit. The collision between these two women proves both transformative and darkly comic; what begins as an education becomes an emancipation.

In The Roommate, Jen Silverman crafts a narrative that transcends the familiar midlife-awakening template. The play interrogates the architecture of submission—how the rules imposed upon Sharon were never benign conventions but instruments of subjugation, internalized so thoroughly that freedom itself becomes disorienting. Silverman understands that metamorphosis is not merely political but physical: a woman relearning her own appetites, her own voice, her own capacity for transgression. Director Lee Lewis approaches Sharon’s trajectory with evident relish, mining the text for its comic exuberance while never trivializing the radical nature of her reinvention. The production recognizes that joy, here, is itself a political act—the pleasure of a body and mind finally claiming ownership of themselves.

Lucy Bell delivers a performance of remarkable dexterity as Sharon, charting the character’s evolution from desperate, almost feral hunger to something approaching sovereignty. She locates the absurdity inherent in Sharon’s naïveté without condescending to it, and grounds the later acts of rebellion in genuine emotional stakes. There is both levity and gravitas in this portrait of self-discovery; Bell renders Sharon’s awakening not as a gentle blooming but as something more disruptive, more voracious.

As Robyn, Belinda Bromilow offers a necessary counterweight—less exuberant than Bell, perhaps, but possessed of an authenticity that prevents the dynamic from collapsing into caricature. Robyn is not merely the catalyst for Sharon’s transformation but a woman undergoing her own quiet excavation, similarly engaged in the arduous work of self-definition.

The production design by Simone Romaniuk operates with astute visual economy, evoking the American landscape through carefully calibrated contrasts—costume and spatial details that externalize the friction between Robyn’s cultivated cosmopolitanism and Sharon’s unexamined provincialism. Matt Cox’s lighting provides understated but precise atmospheric modulation, tracing the characters’ shifting psychological registers without ostentation. Madeleine Picard’s compositions, deployed during scene transitions, maintain narrative momentum with inventive sonic textures that sustain our anticipation for each new development.

What resonates most profoundly is the play’s recognition that Sharon’s ignorance has been structurally cultivated—partly self-imposed, yes, but largely enforced by a hegemony that reduces her to fungible labor, a minor component in an indifferent apparatus. Yet The Roommate refuses easy binaries of victimhood and liberation. Robyn, too, is in flight from a past that no longer fits; her apparently charmed existence conceals its own disillusionments. The feminist dimension of Silverman’s work is unmistakable but never didactic—her argument extends beyond gender to encompass anyone reduced to instrumentality, anyone whose self-possession has been systematically eroded. The play ultimately insists that claiming one’s life is not a single dramatic rupture but a continuous, often comic, occasionally terrifying process of becoming.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: 84 Charing Cross Road (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), May 1 – Jun 13, 2026
Playwright: Helene Hanff (adapted by James Roose-Evans)
Director: Mark Kilmurry
Cast: Blazey Best, Katie Fitchett, Angela Mahlatjie, Brian Meegan, Erik Thomson
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
84 Charing Cross Road preserves the correspondence between the New York writer Helene Hanff and her London bookseller Frank Doel, an epistolary friendship sustained across the Atlantic from 1949 to 1968 without the two ever meeting. James Roose-Evans’s stage adaptation distills two decades of letters into a meditation on bibliophilia and human connection, evoking a vanished world in which anticipation was measured in weeks, and every transaction carried the imprint of a distinct, recognisable personality.

Under Mark Kilmurry’s direction, the production navigates the delicate terrain between sentiment and melancholy with considerable grace. The director elicits from Hanff and Doel’s words a wistful humour that never collapses into mere quaintness, allowing the ache of unfulfilled proximity to resonate beneath the comic surface. Nick Fry’s design conjures the post-war era with persuasive authenticity, though a more expansive delineation of the American quarter of the stage would liberate the action from its occasional spatial congestion. Matt Cox’s lighting bathes the proceedings in the amber glow of half-remembered afternoons, while Madeleine Picard’s score drifts through the narrative like a half-heard melody, lulling the audience into a bittersweet reverie.

Blazey Best brings to Hanff a luminous, irascible charm; convincing as a woman for whom books are not merely objects but necessities of existence, and her yearning to traverse the ocean and stand in the shop at 84 Charing Cross Road is often palpable. Erik Thomson offers a grounded, gentlemanly Doel, though his restrained interpretation muffles a quirkiness that might have rendered the production more vigorously alive.

Yet the play’s true power lies beyond nostalgia. It is, finally, a quiet indictment of our own era. In watching Hanff and Doel forge an intimate community through the slow commerce of ink and paper, one cannot escape the chill of recognition: we surrendered that world with barely a murmur, trading the friction of human encounter for the frictionless efficiency of the algorithm. Amazon, which began at the end of the previous century by selling books, has since metastasised into an all-consuming leviathan, dissolving the very intermediaries—booksellers, correspondents, confidants—through which we once discovered one another. The letters crossing the Atlantic in Hanff’s time were acts of faith in the possibility of being known; what crosses our screens now are transactions optimised for solitude. To leave the theatre is to feel the weight of that exchange, and to realise that we have traded something essential for a convenience we never truly needed.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: Bette & Joan (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Mar 20 – Apr 25, 2026
Playwright: Anton Burge
Director: Liesel Badorrek
Cast: Jeanette Cronin, Lucia Mastrantone
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Anton Burge’s 2011 play Bette & Joan offers a backstage glimpse into the lives of Hollywood legends Davis and Crawford during the making of the classic film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Set against the fraught atmosphere of that production, the drama examines their legendary feud and fraught intimacy, while exposing the deeper vulnerabilities of two aging muses navigating a merciless industry built on rigid hierarchies and the constant threat of obsolescence.

Burge’s script navigates the labyrinthine psychology of these titans with admirable precision, yet the work itself proves uneven in its ability to sustain engagement. Under Liesel Badorrek’s direction, the production’s stylistic elements are cohesively managed, resulting in a production that looks and sounds exquisite—but one that never quite draws us into its central concerns. Grace Deacon’s production design evokes the insular world of a soundstage, with the rear facades of filmmaking flats forming a backdrop. The two dressing tables, though impeccably glamorous, feel somewhat confining. Deacon fares better with her costuming, which achieves a haunting verisimilitude in resurrecting the stars’ 1962 silhouettes—the tweed and talons, the calculated armour of glamour under siege.

Cameron Smith’s video projections—whether pre-recorded or live—are seamlessly integrated and visually splendid, conjuring the texture of an earlier cinematic era. Lighting designer Kelsey Lee and composer Ross Johnston contribute moments of heightened drama, infusing this tribute to old Hollywood with flashes of theatrical beauty, even as the production rarely penetrates beyond surface-level homage.

Performers Jeanette Cronin and Lucia Mastrantone command the stage with palpable confidence, holding our attention through the sheer artistry of their mimicry. Cronin, in particular, delivers a strikingly accurate portrayal of Davis, capturing her distinctive mannerisms, vocal inflections, and a face seemingly sculpted from the same volcanic material as her subject’s.

At its core, Bette & Joan grapples with the phenomenon of female rivalry, revealing that even at the highest echelons of success, women remain bound by shared struggles within a system that depends on their diminishment. By cannibalizing each other’s reputations, they performed the industry’s work of self-sabotage, ensuring that the true mechanisms of dominance remained invisible and intact. Power in its most insidious forms flourishes when the disenfranchised are kept apart—persuaded that their true enemy lies beside them, while the forces that exploit them operate with impunity.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: The Social Ladder (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jan 23 – Mar 14, 2026
Playwright: David Williamson
Director: Janine Watson
Cast:Mandy Bishop, Sarah Chadwick, Jo Downing, Andrew McFarlane, Matt Minto, Johnny Nasser
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
Six people, occupying different rungs of social privilege, gather for a dinner party where envy, resentment and competitiveness simmer just beneath the surface. As the evening unravels, these tensions erupt into a series of heated exchanges, before everyone departs fundamentally unchanged. David Williamson’s The Social Ladder begins with the familiar and fertile promise of drama born from class conflict, but soon slips into a sequence of uneven debates that feel less like interrogation than indulgence—an airing of the wealthy’s grievances in which working-class voices are conspicuously denied wit, agency, or meaningful rebuttal.

Janine Watson’s direction, however, succeeds in generating genuine mirth and momentum, creating a theatrical experience that, while offering little in the way of intellectual satisfaction, nonetheless delivers a buoyant sense of jovial humour. The cast is admirable for a level of commitment that can only stem from a deep dedication to the craft of acting, particularly given the thinness of the material at hand. Their ability to forge a convincing ensemble chemistry is, in this context, quite remarkable. Mandy Bishop, as Katie, the party’s host, is especially commendable, deftly balancing wonderfully heightened comedy with an emotional interior that remains consistently believable.

Veronique Benett’s production design is a visual pleasure, using the trappings of an affluent home to create a staging that captivates through its considered sense of extravagance. Lighting by Matt Cox and music by Clare Hennessy are employed with welcome restraint, functioning as subtle embellishments rather than distractions, and mercifully avoiding the addition of further clutter to an already laboured affair.

The play concludes with a series of awkward, self-satisfied declarations from its wealthiest characters, who promise increased charitable donations in the coming year—as though philanthropy might serve as a redemptive gloss for their deeply unappealing conduct. Yet the gesture rings hollow. A society structured around fairness should not depend on the benevolence of the rich; it should simply require them to pay their taxes. As wealth inequality continues to widen unchecked after decades of escalation, such last-minute moral concessions feel less like insight than evasion.

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Review: Dial M For Murder (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Nov 28, 2025 – Jan 11, 2026
Playwright: Jeffrey Hatcher (from the original by Frederick Knott)
Director: Mark Kilmurry
Cast: Garth Holcombe, Madeleine Jones, Kenneth Moraleda, Anna Samson, David Soncin
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
Margot is conducting an affair, unaware that her husband Tony is quietly engineering her murder. Yet in Dial M for Murder, even the most meticulous schemes refuse to unfold as intended, giving rise to a cascade of unforeseen twists. Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Frederick Knott’s seminal play and film may not conform to the conventions of a traditional whodunnit, but it possesses all the hallmarks of an investigative classic—suspenseful, cunningly constructed, and keeping us on tenterhooks as we strain to anticipate its final reckoning.

Marvellously taut direction from Mark Kilmurry, laced with a gentle, sly humour, yields a thoroughly engaging night at the theatre. While Kilmurry’s treatment of this 1952 tale is not especially inventive, it has no difficulty holding us captive throughout. Each plot revelation is unveiled with delectable finesse, delivering the kind of satisfaction that reminds us why this genre endures so effortlessly.

Nick Fry’s handsome set design allows for fluid, elegant movement, while presenting a sophisticated colour palette that evokes the period yet remains visually appealing. His costumes, impeccably realised, convincingly embody the refinement of the English upper class. Matt Cox’s lighting, with its warm amber glow, flatters the stage picture and injects a quietly simmering dramatic tension. Madeleine Picard’s music, lush and evocative of mid-century cinema, proves sumptuous throughout, ever attuned to deepening the atmosphere of intrigue.

Anna Samson and Garth Holcombe embody, with remarkable acuity, a couple burdened by secrets. Both deliver finely detailed performances that steer the narrative through its dizzying succession of twists, offering a delectable touch of extravagance that never tips into excess. Madeleine Jones and David Soncin provide compelling support, but it is Kenneth Moraleda’s turn as Inspector Hubbard that proves especially irresistible. He infuses the role with a distinctive quirkiness, lending the production an added spark that elevates its overall charm. At the end, the production is an excellent reminder of how perversely delightful it can be to revel in a story woven from such unabashedly heinous acts.

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Review: Fly Girl (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Oct 17 – Nov 22, 2025
Playwrights: Genevieve Hegney, Catherine Moore
Director: Janine Watson
Cast: Genevieve Hegney, Alex Kirwan, Cleo Meinck, Catherine Moore, Emma Palmer
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Deborah Lawrie’s ascent as Australia’s first woman commercial pilot came only after a gruelling battle through the courts and the Equal Opportunity Board, where she forced corporations to confront their own sexism. Fly Girl, the new play by Genevieve Hegney and Catherine Moore, revisits that hard-won triumph with warmth, wit, and reverence — though its faithful retelling can at times feel a touch too tidy for the turbulence it portrays.

Janine Watson’s direction sprinkles in flashes of theatrical flair, amid a production grounded in earnest discussion of gender disparity. Its sincerity may overwhelm at times, yet it leaves a valuable impression — a reminder of how stubbornly patriarchal thinking continues to hold its grip.

Lead actor Cleo Meinck approaches the role with diligence and poise, though her portrayal can feel restrained in tone. She balances feminine grace with quiet strength, but the performance would soar higher with more charm and humour. Around her, a nimble ensemble juggles countless supporting parts, their spirited playfulness ensuring the production never loses its buoyancy.

Grace Deacon’s set and costumes evoke the era with authenticity and colour, their vibrancy lending the stage a visual spark. Morgan Moroney’s lighting delicately sculpts tone and texture, its nuanced changes revealing the work’s shifting moods. Daniel Herten’s sound design completes the world, its careful intricacy transporting us through the play’s varied spaces and temperaments.

It has been nearly half a century since Lawrie shattered the glass ceiling and transformed the landscape for women pilots in Australia. It is tempting to believe that progress moves in a straight line — that equity, once achieved, simply builds upon itself. The reality, however, is far less stable. Every gain invites resistance, and even today, debates in the United States around diversity, equity and inclusion echo with old anxieties. Accusations that women and people of colour are being hired in aviation “without merit” reveal how tenacious patriarchal values remain. Lawrie’s legacy, then, is not a closed chapter but an ongoing call to vigilance.

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: True West (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Sep 8 – Oct 11, 2025
Playwright: Sam Shepard
Director: Ian Sinclair
Cast: Vanessa Downing, Darcy Kent, James Lugton, Simon Maiden
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Austin is holed up in his mother’s California home, polishing his screenplay, when his brother Lee bursts in and blows everything apart. Austin is neat, proper, civilized; Lee is chaos incarnate. In True West, Sam Shepard turns their clash into a battle of identities, a showdown between two Americas under one roof. Many pre-Reagan plays have lost their bite, but this one hits harder than ever—its vision of fractured cultures feels ripped straight from today’s headlines.

Simone Romaniuk’s production design sharpens the play’s intensity: the set feels close and feverish, and the costumes declare conflict from the outset. Brockman’s lighting washes the story with unexpected flamboyance, sculpting emotion into lyrical images of sheer visual poetry. By contrast, Daryl Wallis’ sound design is more restrained, yet its sparseness proves effective in aligning with the play’s measured textual rhythm.

Expertly directed by Ian Sinclair, the staging pursues every dramatic and revelatory possibility in Shepard’s text. What emerges is provocative and cerebral, yet at the same time raw and palpable—an utterly absorbing experience achieved without reliance on superfluous bells and whistles. The play holds us fast with a tale that is at once grounded in reality and tinged with the extraordinary, keeping our fascination with its central relationship alive, while persistently stirring uneasy thoughts about the world we now inhabit.

As Lee, Simon Maiden is a study in intricacy and truth, his every gesture alive with resonant authenticity. Opposite him, Darcy Kent drives Austin into surprising surges of theatricality, pushing the drama to exhilarating heights. Each is formidable in his own right, yet it is their electrifying chemistry together that anchors the production’s success. Around them, James Lugton and Vanessa Downing embrace their smaller roles with admirable flair, their comic touches both outlandish and irresistible, adding yet another layer of delight.

Beneath the polished surface of Western progress and civility lies a startling fragility. In True West, the brothers slip effortlessly into barbarity, exposing the raw, untamed instincts lurking beneath social masks. Both cling to a mythic past, yearning to make America great again, as if modernity has failed them, even though much of contemporary advancement has unequivocally strengthened democracy and improved life collectively. True West reminds us that, no matter how far society reaches toward progress, those who wield the greatest power—and shape the course of our evolution—often remain savages at heart.

(Note: due to a medical emergency on opening night, the part of Lee was played by director Ian Sinclair for the final scene.)

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: How To Plot A Hit In Two Days (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Aug 29 – Oct 11, 2025
Playwright: Melanie Tait
Director: Lee Lewis
Cast: Amy Ingram, Genevieve Lemon, Seán O’Shea, Georgie Parker, Julia Robertson
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
It is 1985, and a key cast member is departing the high-rating Australian soap opera A Country Practice. The writers are tasked with making sense of her exit, not only for themselves as creatives deeply entwined with the show, but also for a public profoundly invested in its characters. How to Plot a Hit in Two Days by Melanie Tait is a charming reimagining of the delicate machinery behind one of the era’s most unforgettable television moments. The play beautifully captures the intricacies of artistic collaboration, resonating with anyone curious about the creative process. Yet its heavy reliance on a very particular vein of cultural nostalgia risks alienating contemporary audiences less familiar with that history.

Direction by Lee Lewis yields a staging memorable for the impeccable chemistry of its ensemble. With five richly detailed and impassioned performers—Amy Ingram, Genevieve Lemon, Seán O’Shea, Georgie Parker, and Julia Robertson—the production seizes our attention from the outset and holds us firmly in its grasp throughout. Ingram’s portrayal of ex-jailbird Sharon is particularly winning, her brusque humour shaping much of the production’s tone.

The design is stripped to its essentials, fitting for a work that demands little ornamentation. Simone Romaniuk’s set and costumes reflect the utilitarian realities of artistic work, while Brockman’s lighting and Paul Charlier’s music recede gracefully into the background, surfacing only now and then to deliver moments of flourish.

Only in recent years have we begun to reckon with the fact that we call Australia is not, and never was, a monolith. The twentieth century was steeped in assimilationist ideology, shaped by values imposed by a white patriarchy that governed not only our daily lives but also our very understanding of reality. In 1985, it seemed entirely reasonable to assume that the whole nation might gather around the same television program. Today, we can scarcely agree on the story of how modern life on these lands was forged.

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Review: Emerald City (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Jul 18 – Aug 23, 2025
Playwright: David Williamson
Director: Mark Kilmurry
Cast: Aisha Aidara, Danielle Carter, Rachel Gordon, Matt Minto, Tom O’Sullivan, Rajan Velu
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
Reaganomics and Thatcherism were in full force when David Williamson’s Emerald City first emerged—a play in which a screenwriter grapples with his artistic integrity in a world determined to commodify everything. Almost four decades on, the conflict between art and commerce remains and has become so subsumed into our daily realities that watching an artist navigate those old quagmires now seems strangely quaint.

Direction by Mark Kilmurry is thankfully taut and energetic, with leading man Tom O’Sullivan bringing commitment and valuable charisma to the not-always-likable role of Colin. His wife Kate is made a powerful figure by Rachel Gordon’s confidence and panache. Matt Minto is appropriately dubious as the opportunistic Mike, while Aisha Aidara’s portrayal of his partner Helen surprises with warmth and a compelling naturalism.

Production design by Dan Potra depicts the era with some accuracy, but can appear somewhat simplistic in approach. Lights by Morgan Moroney improve the viewing experience by effecting subtle shifts as the production transforms in tone and temperament. Music by Madeleine Picard add a dimension of ephemerality to the way we feel about this straightforward story.

The city of Sydney serves as a fitting backdrop for this reflection on commercialism and its entanglement with human life. Money, undeniably, shapes much of who we are here—as it does in any city—and while we recognise that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil,’ it is equally true that our relative affluence underpins many of the pleasures we associate with life in this frankly magnificent place.

www.ensemble.com.au