Tag Archives: sour cherry productions

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: New Works Festival Part 1 (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW)

All The Fraudulent Horse Girls Aug 30 – Sep 14, 2024
Playwright: Michael Louis Kennedy
Director: Jess Arthur
Cast: Janet Anderson, Caitlin A. Kearney, Shirong Wu
Images by Robert Catto

Probe Sep 5 – 14, 2024
Playwright: Becca Hurd
Director: Rachel Chant
Cast: Ryan Panizza, Ziggy Resnick
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
The first in a series of double bills, at the New Works Festival by Old Fitz Theatre, features All The Fraudulent Horse Girls by Michael Louis Kennedy and Probe by Becca Hurd. The former tells the whimsical story of an 11-year-old’s fascination with horses, full of comical imagination if slightly too bizarre to meaningfully engage in. The latter is a two-hander about the current state of the film industry, with a particular interest in the prevailing gender inequity that firmly undergirds the system, notable for its mischievous dialogue, but could benefit from some thoughtful editing.

Direction for both pieces are sensitively and elegantly accomplished, by Jess Archer for Horse Girls and by Rachel Chant for Probe. There is a bold theatricality in their work that translates as an effervescence to help sustain our attention. Lighting design by Emma Van Heen demonstrates a keen for dramatic tension as well as for humour, able to manufacture effective atmospheric transformations to keep our sensibilities attuned.

A uniformly excellent group of performers, each one of them deliberative yet uninhibited, insists on making us convinced and interested in what they present. Janet Anderson, Caitlin A. Kearney and Shirong Wu are wonderful with the kookiness of their equine themed creation, offering great variety to their depictions of something fantastical and strange. Playing filmmakers at different stages of their careers, Ryan Panizza and Ziggy Resnick are often powerful with what they bring, and impressive with the level of conviction they deliver for a couple of very challenging characters. These two plays in the first instalment of New Works Festival prove demanding in different ways, but the cast makes it a worthwhile experience, in an artform that is always collaborative, and as can be witnessed here, eternally optimistic.

ww.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.instagram.com/sourcherry.productions

Review: Saturday Girls (25A Belvoir)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Aug 9 – 27, 2023
Playwright: Miranda Michalowski
Director: LJ Wilson
Cast: Mym Kwa, Lucy Burke, Candice Mejias, Brandon Scane
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review

Joey and Sam are besties at high school, both girls demonstrating excellent control over their bodies when rehearsing with their dance team, but who are only now starting to negotiate their personal autonomies, in a world that never really knows how to deal with sexual agency in young women. Saturday Girls by Miranda Michalowski offers a look at the awkward years, of teenagers trying to own their sexualities, before understanding any of the complexities involved. It is a humorous work, in a style more appropriate for younger audiences perhaps, with good attempts at exploring the deeper dimensions of adolescence, from a burgeoning writer who is evidently, and rightly, still bewildered by adulthood.

Teenage clumsiness is portrayed with accuracy by director LJ Wilson, who renders for every character an earnest innocence, alongside a comedy that is somewhat trite in approach, although school-age viewers could very well relate to a tone of performance, that some of the older generations find alienating.

Set design by Soham Apte features a simple but elegant representation of the gym where Joey and Sam spend their time, with ample space to accommodate all manner of creative physical configurations. Esther Zhong’s costumes are attentive to the personality types being depicted, and protective of the bodies being put under scrutiny. Lights by Aron Murray and sound by Sam Cheng are helpful in conveying tonal shifts in the storytelling, but would benefit from being slightly less predictable in approach.

Joey and Sam are played by Lucy Burke and Mym Kwa respectively, both actors displaying admirable commitment to the cause, and highly convincing as Year 10 students at a difficult stage of being neither children nor adults. Supporting players Candice Mejias and Brandon Scane bring wonderful playfulness to Saturday Girls, vibrant but also considered, in their expressions of youthful folly.

It takes time to become a woman. One needs to learn about all the ways she is vulnerable, in a world that has for centuries relegated her as inferior, and therefore available to be exploited, used and abused. We protect our children, but are terrified that they may learn the truth of what we are protecting them from. They are therefore subject to a long sequence of awakenings, that are sobering and enraging, but also at times, pleasurable. There seems no easy way. For as long as we insist on bringing life into existence, innocence will be ravaged, but we remain hopeful that their time on this plane will somehow be better.

www.instagram.com/sourcherry.productions | www.belvoir.com.au