Tag Archives: qtopia

Review: Thirty-Six (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Jul 8 – 18, 2026
Playwrights: Jo Clifford, Bayley Turner
Director: Kita Petkovski
Cast: Bayley Turner
Images by Andrew Kim

Theatre review
Turning thirty-five might ordinarily invite a quiet celebration, but for Bayley Turner, the milestone carries a heavier shadow. The spectre of that oft-cited, entirely unsubstantiated statistic—that trans women seldom live beyond thirty-five—looms over her birthday, colouring the occasion with an unavoidable gravity. Yet the anxieties it stirs are hardly spectral alone; they are tethered to the tangible hardships of trans existence, the material and psychological tolls that accumulate in a world still reluctant to make room.

For all the generations of trans people who have lived, loved, and endured before us, their voices have rarely been granted the platforms or the permanence to offer those who follow something solid to hold onto—reference points, roadmaps, or simply the comfort of being understood. Thirty-Six, the one-woman play Turner has created with her seventy-five-year-old mentor Jo Clifford, arrives as something rare: an intergenerational conversation rendered in performance, giving shape to the sorrow and fear, but also the unexpected joy and stubborn inspiration, of living openly as trans in an era of unprecedented visibility. The work is unflinching in its honesty, and both creators have evidently plumbed its ideas with a depth that leaves few difficult truths unexamined.

If the purpose of art is to haul what remains unsaid into the light, then Thirty-Six is an undeniably significant achievement. Where it falters is in its theatrical imagination: the writing, for all its emotional intelligence, could sit almost as comfortably on the page as it does on the stage. It lacks the particular immediacy that distinguishes drama from literature—those irreplaceable collisions of body, voice, and space that demand live performance.

Fortunately, director Kita Petkovski intervenes with ingenuity, finding visual textures to animate the monologue and expanding the hour-long staging into something that nearly matches the words in captivation. Spencer Herd’s lighting bathes the space in a warm, flattering glow that never quite lets us forget the melancholy threading beneath; it is an invitation into sentiment without surrendering to it. Aron Murray’s video projections lend variety to the visual landscape, while Jack Burmeister’s score moves nimbly between uplift and sombreness, calibrating atmosphere with a deft hand.

As performer, Turner is a compelling presence—effortlessly charismatic, possessed of a confidence that keeps the audience held close throughout. There is an ease to her delivery that reassures, even if one senses she is capable of still greater dramatic complexity given more demanding material.

The myth of the thirty-five-year lifespan may be exactly that, but the reality it gestures toward is no fiction. Without stable housing, secure employment, adequate healthcare, and communities that sustain rather than isolate, trans lives are routinely foreshortened—made not only harder but often less fully lived. For as long as the standards of care and dignity remain so starkly divided between cis and trans existence, works like Thirty-Six that insist on naming these disparities will remain not merely welcome, but essential.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.instagram.com/apertureprods

Review: Toxic (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Apr 20 – May 9, 2026
Playwright: Nathaniel J Hall
Director: Gavin Roach
Cast: Bash Nelson, Patrick Phillips
Images by Robert Catto

Theatre review
In Nathaniel J Hall’s Toxic, two young men in their twenties tumble into love with the heedless velocity of youth, cohabiting almost as swiftly as they collide. The play examines that familiar phenomenon wherein the young pledge themselves to profound domestic entanglement before they have sufficiently mapped the interior territories of their own selves. Yet Hall constructs his narrative with a necessary circularity: the fissures that eventually fracture the relationship become, paradoxically, the very instruments through which each man comes to know himself. The work suggests that heartache and anguish are not merely unfortunate by-products of intimacy but necessary instruments of maturation—painful, inexorable rites without which genuine adulthood remains elusive.

Hall’s writing possesses a confessionary candour, and its unbridled artistic honesty is to be admired. Yet for all its visceral authenticity, the revelations contained within Toxic seldom startle; the territory it maps feels familiar, even anticipated. One appreciates the vulnerability on display without ever quite being astonished by it.

Director Gavin Roach attempts to generate theatrical voltage through excess, foregrounding the sex and narcotics that lubricate the men’s bond. These elements are staged with reasonable explicitness, yet rather than elevating the material into the transgressive or the revelatory, the production ultimately feels pedestrian—a conventional narrative dressed in the costume of debauchery, unable to transcend its own sensationalism.

As the couple, Bash Nelson and Patrick Phillips bring a focussed, muscular energy to the stage, committing themselves to the physical and emotional demands of the roles with undeniable dedication. Where they falter is in the subtler intricacies of the psychology they are charged with interrogating. The subterranean currents of individual neurosis are insufficiently excavated, nor do they render the shifting power dynamics between them with satisfying complexity. Consequently, the production’s explorations of human behaviour—its contradictions, its compulsions, its myriad ambivalences—remain somewhat at arm’s length. We observe the characters’ turmoil without being wholly drawn into its labyrinth.

The play’s underlying philosophy is perhaps its most resonant thread. We spend our lives attempting to circumvent emotional devastation, yet it is precisely through lacerating experience that we are forged. Hall’s protagonists have committed no transgression that would warrant the anguish they endure; their suffering arrives not as punishment but as the arbitrary, brutal tuition of existence. And herein lies the work’s most sophisticated tension: the hedonism they pursue—those nights of chemical and carnal abandon—reads simultaneously as evasion, a frantic attempt to outrun what must eventually be processed, and as a strange species of emancipation. For these two fortunate souls, who never quite tumble past the point of no return, debauchery becomes not merely escape but liberation—a messy, imperfect key to self-discovery. They emerge scathed but transformed, having learned that growth and agony are not opposites but conjoined twins, inseparable in the nature of a life fully lived.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.instagram.com/a_hello_darling_production

Review: Eden (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Apr 7 – 18, 2026
Playwright: Kate Gaul
Director: Kate Gaul
Cast: Karrine Kanaan, Lara Lightfoot
Images by Natalia Ladyko

Theatre review
In a parched country town where the heat seems to calcify tradition, Dan and Kit stand at the precipice of adulthood, shedding the protective guilelessness of childhood to confront a more sinister revelation: womanhood here is not merely circumscribed but surveilled, and the silence of those around them—neighbours, family, the very landscape—feels less like innocence than complicity. When a woman’s body surfaces by the river under circumstances the town seems determined to ignore, the water’s edge becomes a threshold. The girls recognize, with the slow horror of dawning consciousness, that their home is not merely backward but actively dangerous, its beauty a camouflage for violence.

Kate Gaul’s Eden wears its politics lightly, or rather, embeds them in the marrow of its aesthetic. Working within the registers of Australian Gothic—where the land itself is a protagonist, ancient and indifferent, bearing both sacred lore and the scar tissue of colonization—Gaul conjures a world where the metaphysical bleeds into the mundane. Lyrical and at times overly opaque, Eden possesses a surface simplicity that renders it unexpectedly inviting. Though it sacrifices overt agitational urgency, Eden proves potent as an impressionistic piece, compensating with raw theatrical vitality.

Karrine Kanaan and Lara Lightfoot bring their characters to life with amusing exuberance, emerging as warmly compelling presences whose effortlessly captivating chemistry deepens our investment in the narrative. Nate Edmondson’s music stands as an unequivocal highlight, amplifying the play’s metaphysical unease while maintaining a relentless grip on the narrative’s forward motion, ensuring that even as we contemplate the cyclical nature of time and trauma, we remain breathlessly attentive to the fate of these young women.

Some places are defined by arrival, others by the doggedness of those who stay. Country towns ossify around their permanent residents, demanding that newcomers dissolve into the prevailing chemistry; cities, by contrast, offer themselves as mutable terrains, melting pots where identity might be recast rather than inherited. Time has proven itself circular, history always seeming an infinite loop rather than an arrow, yet it is hard not to think of progress as linear. Dan and Kit will inevitably arrive at their destined authentic selves, yet that metamorphosis appears contingent upon an exodus from this unforgiving terrain.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.sirentheatreco.com

Review: They Will Be Kings (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Feb 11 – 21, 2026
Playwright: 
Director: Kaz Therese
Cast: Beks Blake, Danica Lani, Chris McAllister, Angel Tan
Images by Jessica Hromas

Theatre review
Four drag kings converge in They Will Be Kings to excavate the layered narratives of their becoming. Chase Cox, Dario di Bello, Fine China, and Jim Junkie each emerge from distinct origins, propelled by singular raisons d’être—yet together they orchestrate a meditation on gender’s fluid architecture. Against the grain of a world that insists upon the fixed polarity of male and female, their collective performance unravels the artifice of such certainties, illuminating instead the protean, unruly nature of identity itself.

Under Kaz Therese’s direction, the production achieves a wonderful alchemy—transmuting four distinct sensibilities into an elegant, unified architecture. They Will Be Kings emerges as a clever meditation on gender variance: its ontological textures, its protean expressions. Each performer—Beks Blake, Danica Lani, Chris McAllister, and Angel Tan—contributes a singular artistic vocabulary, yet coheres through an ethos of collective intentionality. The result is not mere showcase but invocation: an ensemble that summons the audience toward expansiveness, demanding not passive reception but active transformation of mind and heart.

Gender presents a fundamental paradox. It functions as a system built on fixed categories, yet lived experience constantly spills beyond these boundaries into territory that resists easy definition. Humans inevitably sort one another into boxes, yet what we most desire is freedom.
 
Gender, at its best, offers pleasure, play, and genuine self-expression; yet too often it serves darker purposes—erasure, marginalisation, the violent enforcement of conformity. It is something we can resist, yet also something we can savour. To understand how it works—its mechanisms of control—is essential if we hope to move beyond its restrictions and dangers, transforming vulnerability into agency.

Review: Split Ends (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Jan 20 – 24, 2026
Playwright: Claudia Schnier
Director: Claudia Schnier
Cast: Claudia Schnier
Images by 

Theatre review
In her one-woman show, Claudia Schnier candidly reveals a lifelong pattern of obsessive behaviour, tracing it back to childhood, when she found herself compulsively trimming her own hair. In Split Ends, we witness her gradual unravelling in the aftermath of sexual assault by a former partner, as she revisits the regret-laden hindsight of missed warning signs and the painful inability to extract herself from a relationship that was, in retrospect, unmistakably toxic.

Schnier performs the work clad in gym attire, her muscular athleticism on full display as she interrogates both her own perceived vulnerability and the moral brutality of the person who exploited it. Much of Split Ends is deliberately confronting, making for an often uncomfortable viewing experience; however, the artist’s commitment never wavers and is beyond question. While the dramaturgical material itself may at times lack sufficient richness, Schnier’s assured command of video projection, lighting, and sound design significantly elevates the work, underscoring her impressive aptitude across multiple disciplines.

At the outset of the piece, Schnier repeats a refrain about “being enough,” deploying it as a kind of incantation—an attempt to ward off a pervasive sense of inadequacy and to summon a security that remains persistently out of reach. Girls and women are compelled to survive within environments engineered to erode self-esteem and undermine self-possession. Economic and social systems do not merely rely upon our subjugation, but flourish through our internalised surrender to the belief that we are perpetually lacking—that completion lies elsewhere, in something or someone beyond ourselves. The truth is that we require very little; yet to exist without yearning for what we have been so thoroughly conditioned to desire is an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.

Review: Beautiful Thing (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Dec 3 – 13, 2025
Playwright: Jonathan Harvey
Director: Finn Stannard
Cast: Poppy Cozens, Max Dÿkstra, Michael Hogg, Willa King, Jake Walker
Images by Alexandra Tiernan, Yingying Zhang

Theatre review

It is challenging enough for two teenage boys to fall in love, but the lower-socioeconomic circumstances into which Jamie and Ste are born make the prospect exponentially more fraught. Jonathan Harvey’s seminal Beautiful Thing may be more than thirty years old, yet not a moment of it feels antiquated. Still resonant and urgent, the play continues to illuminate a vital social discourse while remaining every bit as entertaining and affecting as it ever was.

Under the direction of Finn Stannard, this production proves a genuine delight, distinguished by its keen focus on the intimacies between characters and its palpable tenderness toward individuals navigating their own distinct hardships. The set, designed by Laila McCarthy and Zoe Young, is both convincing and versatile, while Raphael Gennusa’s unadorned lighting design shifts quietly, guiding us gently through the changing moods of each scene.

Jake Walker engenders genuine empathy as Jamie, delivering a persuasive portrait of youthful innocence edged with quiet longing. Max Dÿkstra may veer toward understatement as Ste, yet his restraint never obscures the depth of the young man’s turmoil, which remains palpable throughout. Their mutual friend Leah is vivaciously inhabited by Poppy Cozens, whose irrepressible sass and streak of mischief punctuate the play with welcome irreverence. Equally playful is Willa King as Jamie’s mother, Sandra; she injects the production with invaluable verve and humour, while capturing with striking precision the realities of a single mother navigating the precarity of the lower working class. Her boyfriend Tony, portrayed by Michael Hogg, may not always land the comedic beats, but he compensates with a deft sensitivity that emerges at precisely the moments the drama most requires.

In 1993, few could have imagined that same-sex marriage would become a lived reality within a single generation, yet history has a way of revealing humanity’s capacity for radical progress. For many queer youth, particularly those in the West, growing up beyond the strictures of heteronormativity has grown markedly less daunting with each passing decade. Living in poverty, however, remains a far more stubborn barrier to liberation, especially in an era marked by worsening wealth disparities that entrench disadvantage as swiftly as social attitudes evolve. It is a sobering reminder that equality in law does not instantly translate to equality in life — and that love, though triumphant, still has to fight for its footing.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.companyofdramaticarts.com

Review: Gravity (Qtopia)

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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.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au | www.rogueprojects.com.au

Review: Bonny & Read (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Oct 29 – Nov 8, 2025
Music and Lyrics: Ben James, Aiden Smith, Emily Whiting
Book: Aiden Smith, Emily Whiting
Director: Holly Mazzola
Cast: Elliot Aitken, Tori Bullard, Percy Chiu, Max Fernandez, Ben James, Helen Jordan-Lane, Gabi Lanham, Jack Mitsch, Alex Travers
Images by Patrick Phillips

Theatre review
Mary Read’s longing for the sea compels her to disguise herself as a man and sign aboard a merchant vessel. Fate brings her face to face with the infamous pirate Anne Bonny, and what begins as captivity soon evolves into love. In Bonny & Read, writers Ben James, Aiden Smith, and Emily Whiting revisit this 18th-century romance through a distinctly contemporary lens, crafting a musical that reclaims two legendary women from history’s margins and lets their passion sail freely at last.

The songs are engaging, if somewhat conventional, elevated by Iris Wu’s sumptuous musical direction and the cohesive aural textures shaped by sound designer Sam Cheng. While the story itself is compelling, the book of Bonny & Read can feel unnecessarily convoluted, and Holly Mazzola’s direction does little to untangle its narrative knots. Still, her instinct for spectacle is undeniable, and with Lauren Mitchell’s energetic choreography, the production maintains a lively momentum even when its storytelling falters.

Geita Goarin’s production design is modest but evocative, sketching the period with just enough texture to spark the imagination. It is, however, Luna Ng’s lighting that truly captivates — rich in drama and ambition, it shapes the emotional contours of the piece with clarity and grace, revealing the story’s subtler undercurrents and giving its sentiment a luminous depth.

Vocally, the cast ranges from competent to exceptional, with Gabi Lanham delivering a standout performance as Mary Read, her voice both rich and assured. The acting, however, is uneven across the ensemble. Tori Bullard brings sincerity and emotional intensity to Anne Bonny, offering a grounded presence amid the production’s more variable performances.

The story of Mary Read and Anne Bonny is a vivid reminder of queer forebears whose lives were too often erased or silenced by history. Their courage — at sea, in love, and in defiance of rigid conventions — still echoes across the centuries. Bonny & Read illuminates this hidden legacy, celebrating two women who claimed their freedom on their own terms, and suggesting that queer communities might take a page from the pirate’s book: to chart daring courses, embrace audacity, and live boldly, even when the world seeks to bury them.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au

Review: Fekei (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Oct 8 – 18, 2025
Playwright: Sarah Carroll
Director: Sarah Carroll
Cast: Melissa Applin, Natalie Patterson, Kikki Temple, Lawrence Ola, Naisa Lasalosi, Mele Telefon
Images by DefinitelyDefne Photography

Theatre review
Akanisi returns to her hometown in Fiji for what was meant to be a relaxing visit, but the trip quickly becomes fraught with tension when her girlfriend Sam joins her, with her family remaining unaware about Akanisi’s queerness. Fekei by Sarah Carroll explores how postcolonial societies grapple with the lingering influence of Christian doctrines that have bred prejudice and shame. Yet, it also reveals how deeply rooted cultural traditions can offer resilience and acceptance, standing firm against the harmful legacies of biblical indoctrination.

It is a sincere work by Carroll — tenderly written and often humorous in its portrayal of cultural idiosyncrasies. Their direction, however, lacks refinement; the rawness of approach occasionally renders scenes forced or unconvincing. Yet, Luna Ng’s commendable lighting design provides a counterbalance, its sensitive evocation of atmosphere helping to guide the audience through the production’s emotional shifts.

Melissa Applin brings a quiet sincerity to Akanisi, while Natalie Patterson infuses Sam with a buoyant, infectious energy. Yet the emotional core of their relationship never quite lands, and a stronger chemistry between the two would give the story greater pull. As Akanisi’s family, Kikki Temple and Naisa Lasalosi are a delight — playful, camp, and full of heart — offering both comic relief and genuine tenderness. In supporting turns, Lawrence Ola and Melehola Telefoni add texture and vibrancy, enriching the play’s portrait of everyday life in Fiji.

Queer people have every right to want acceptance, a pursuit that is both natural and deserved, though sometimes harmony is the closest we can come. The influence of religion in the Pacific runs deep; after more than two centuries of Christian indoctrination, its unravelling will take generations. During her fleeting return home, Akanisi cannot hope to rewrite her grandmother’s faith, but within their shared customs lies an older wisdom: one that values peace, patience, and the quiet endurance of love.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au

Review: Foam (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Aug 6 – 23, 2025
Playwright: Harry McDonald
Director: Gavin Roach
Cast: Joshua Merten, Patrick Phillips, Timothy Springs, Chad Traupmann
Images by Robert Catto

Theatre review
Nicky Crane was British, gay and a neo-Nazi. The play Foam by Harry McDonald chronicles Crane’s life from 1974 at the age of 15, until his AIDS-related death in 1993. While people like Crane may seem best left to oblivion, there is merit in remembering atrocities, if only to guard against their repetition. While McDonald’s writing presents itself as a candid account of the man’s life, it occasionally lapses into sympathy, rendering the show an uneasy experience.

Direction by Gavin Roach embraces an unadorned aesthetic that suits the material, but an absence of a clear political stance and sufficient dramatic tension, leaves the production feeling somewhat inert. Actor Patrick Phillips is noteworthy for the commitment he brings to the lead role. While he struggles to convey the menacing quality essential to the story, his unwavering focus throughout the production’s entire duration remains impressive. 

It is true that we stand upon the shoulders of giants, but it is also true that there are parts of our collective histories that are shameful and deplorable. As a community that has endured immeasurable injustice and persecution, it might seem natural that we would know better than anyone how to reject hatred and oppression. Yet the truth remains, that some will carry that cruelty within, letting it shape the course of their lives.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au