Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Feb 13 – 28, 2026
Playwright: Jennifer Lunn
Director: Emma Canalese
Cast: Annie Byron, Eloise Snape, Fay Du Chateau, Erika Ndibe, Charlotte Salusinszky
Images by Robert Catto
Theatre review
Esme has turned seventy-one, and the encroachment of dementia is becoming unmistakable. Her de facto partner of thirty-six years, Flo, remains steadfast in her commitment to care for Esme at home. Yet Esme’s son, asserting familial authority, is equally resolved to relocate her to an aged care facility. In Es & Flo, Jennifer Lunn examines a predicament all too familiar to many same-sex couples of a certain generation: the systematic erasure of their relationships by both kin and legal institutions, stripping them of companionship and patrimony precisely when bodily decline renders them most vulnerable.
It is a deeply affecting work, one that, under Emma Canalese’s astute direction, strikes precisely the right register to resonate with its audience, delivering a theatrical experience at once moving and meaningful. Annie Byron is particularly compelling as Esme, capturing with remarkable subtlety the complex metamorphoses that accompany the advance of age. Her portrayal of authentic tenderness toward her partner does much to render their bond credible, thereby securing the audience’s emotional investment in the narrative. Fay Du Chateau’s Flo truly comes into her own as the drama intensifies, revealing layers of fortitude and vulnerability. The supporting ensemble—Eloise Snape, Erika Ndibe, and Charlotte Salusinszky—likewise distinguishes itself, bringing thoughtfulness and nuance to every moment.
Soham Apte’s set design evokes a recognisable domestic sphere even as its spatial demarcations permit scenes to unfold with fluidity. Alice Vance’s costuming conjures persuasive archetypes while conferring upon the stage a distinct, understated elegance. Luna Ng’s lighting, though never ostentatious, illuminates each interaction with precision, calibrated to elicit the requisite emotional response from an audience confronting a narrative at once tender and consequential.
The love between the two elders in Es & Flo is rendered as indissoluble, yet even now such unions remain perpetually imperilled. Statutory equality and the legal recognition of same-sex marriage have not extinguished the social dynamics capable of sundering these bonds—particularly when queer individuals advance into infirmity and can no longer safeguard their own interests. Equality on paper is but a parchment promise unless the circle of kinship closes around us, unless the community becomes armour against the gathering dark of our final queer years.
Suzy Goes See 