The best of Melbourne theatre and musicals this month

Melbourne Uni’s swish new, blue-hued Union Theatre seats 398 people. It’s a number made quietly devastating by Western Sydney playwright S Shakthidharan’s sprawling family epic Counting and Cracking. 

Spanning almost 50 years, four generations and multiple countries – connecting Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, to Sydney – much of what occurs is informed, one way or another, by the terrifying devastation of Sri Lanka’s Civil War. The fighting was ignited by the Black July riots of 1983, a pogrom that cruelly claimed countless souls. Bob Hawke’s Labor government offered 100 visas to the predominantly Tamil minority fleeing the country-wide wave of violence, or one for every fourth audience member. A pin-drop moment. But there’s much more on offer here than grasping despair. 

It’s been five long years since Belvoir St Theatre first presented Counting and Cracking at the Sydney Town Hall during the 2019 Sydney Festival. Having travelled around the world since, snapping up a bunch of awards along the way, it’ll land in New York in September. But first, Melbourne audiences can see this glorious work of love and understanding as part of Rising. 

Opening with a flourish of culture-clash comedy, an abundantly effervescent Shiv Palekar’s awkwardly topless Siddhartha is deeply uncomfortable about wading into the Georges River. He’s been ordered to do so by his overbearing yet bountifully loving mum Radha (a fabulously commanding Nadie Kammallaweera) to ceremonially scatter the ashes of his ammamma (grandmother). Radha’s fretting frustrations are priceless as she sharply backchats his ignorance of their family’s ways. 

She carried Sid to Sydney in her belly and rarely speaks of her life in Sri Lanka. A distance between them that’s been amplified by him moving east, retreating from their shared home in Pendle Hill to Coogee while studying media studies (Radha playfully swipes at the ‘study’ repetition). He goes by the name Sid to his unseen uni mates, and the scant Tamil he knows is recalled by sound, rather than meaning, from the lullabies his ammamma once sang to him.

As directed by Eamon Flack – with he and Shakthidharan collaborating closely on this semi-autobiographical story – it plays out in a dusty courtyard with high stone walls punctuated by faded green gates. Sid’s doused by golden bowls bearing water, rather than the flow of the Georges River. It’s a gloriously theatrical touch in a show with grand scope, but one that’s simply and often funnily told. Simple props and actions transport us, collapsing space and time in the blink of an eye. Shakthidharan’s storytelling is so strong and clear that we hardly need the swinging street signs alerting us to where and when we are. 

So, we’re whisked from the river to a meet-cute in an empty play park at 5am, care of a seesaw carried in by cast members. Here we meet Kalkadoon actor Abbie-lee Lewis as Lily, a Yolngu woman who helps Sid spy connections between the diaspora community he feels dislocated from and the First Nations, as written in the stars. 

With a 19-strong ensemble leaping between 50-plus characters and speaking five languages translated in real-time, there’s a constellation swirling to make this show happen. They include Rodney Afif as the irrepressibly optimistic Turkish man hired to install Radha’s new air conditioner, who has high hopes of winning her hand if only he can navigate past her exasperated responses to her door buzzer.

We’ll meet younger Radhas – including Radhika Mudaliyar as her 21-year-old self – her amma (mother) and Sukania Venugopal as her ammamma. Multi-hyphenate film and theatre-maker Prakash Belawad depicts her politician grandfather (tatta) with great gravitas. Through intricately laced snippets, we begin to piece together the rich tapestry of her personal history, including a choice between two young men: Sukhbir Singh Walia’s journalist and Kaivalya Suvarna’s son of a fruit seller.

As a fictionalised reflection of aspects of her true story, Shakthidharan’s mother, Anandavalli, also plays a key role in bringing this majestic show to life. A dance teacher who founded her own academy, her choreography skills corral Counting and Cracking’s magnificent dance sequences. She aided Dale Ferguson’s costume designs and oversaw all cultural details. Carnatic music played on stage by a three-piece band brings us in closer still to the unravelling narrative. 

Decentering whiteness at every step, the play features a fleeting mention of former Prime Minister John Howard and his notorious slight against Sri Lankan cricketing hero Murali, eliciting cheeky guffaws, and tut-tuts at a drunk British person at a wedding, but that’s about it. Instead, Shakthidharan guides us, through Sid and Radha’s stories, to witness both the fractious sweep of recent Sri Lankan history and a more inclusive view of Australian identity.

Counting and Cracking contains multitudes, with the actors spilling out over the stage’s boundary and in via various auditorium doors to either break the fourth wall or hold us rapt in a moment, like a tense series of phone calls when it all goes to the wall in ’83. Capturing so much in a three-and-a-half-hour run that never wears its weight heavily, the play’s a marvel. Overall, it’s a contemporary classic that is well worth Melbourne’s wait.

Counting and Cracking is playing at the University of Melbourne's Union Theatre until June 23 and tickets are available here.

Feeling dramatic? Check out the best theatre to see in Melbourne this month.

Heading to Rising? Here are our favourite things to see.

After acclaimed performances in Sydney last year, Melbourne Theatre Company is bringing Julia to the Southbank Theatre stage from May 31 until July 6. This production from Sydney Theatre Company and Canberra Theatre Centre documents one of the most pivotal moments in Australian political history: former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's famous 2012 'misogyny speech'. Demand for this play looks to be robust, so we recommend heading to the Melbourne Theatre Comany website to secure your tickets sooner rather than later.

Time Out Sydney reviewed Julia when it played at the Opera House in 2023. Read on for that four-star review:

 When Julia Gillard’s distinctive ocker voice first emerged from Justine Clarke’s mouth on Opening Night of Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Julia, the audience literally gasp-screamed. It was, without mincing words, pretty freaky. 

STC’s production of Julia is a long-awaited response to one of the most iconic (and spicy) speeches made in Australian history. Written by Joanna Murray Smith, directed by Sarah Goodes, and starring national treasure Justine Clarke as Julia Gillard herself, this deeply Australian story is an amorphous re-imagining of all the forces that led up to that moment in 2012 when Julia Gillard so perfectly and viscously roasted Tony Abbott in the House of Representatives. 

Julia is an intoxicating and fascinating experience that hits something deep and resounding within us

We all know *that speech* (and if you don’t, watch it right now). It was a moment that stopped the internet and hearts all over the world. Gillard’s masterful use of rage gave voice to the invisible fury of millions of women who have spent a millennia not being taken seriously. The power of ‘the speech’ has made it a thing of legend, setting the stakes high for anyone trying to recreate it. However, now, in Julia, the creators have managed (mostly) to pull it off. 

This play tries to start at the very beginning. We are taken deep into Gillard’s childhood as the child of Welsh parents. Her coalmining father plays a big role, with Clarke seamlessly rolling out a melodic Welsh drawl while repeating her father’s advice: “Any fight for justice is our fight, Julia”. 

It should be noted that for a story built on the female experience, Gillard’s father looms large  as the sole source of her moral fortitude. Meanwhile, her mother is generally nonexistent – other than telling an eight-year-old Julia why she ought to have children (“it’s just what people do”), and then later, reassuring the vilified politician that “we know who you are”. This decision could be due to the sad passing of Gillard’s father during her prime ministership, compounded with the horrific comments from Alan Jones that followed (“he died of shame”) – however, it’s an interesting omission. 

Set designer Renee Mulder has come through with a sparse set that pulls Justine Clarke’s performance into magical focus. Framing the stage are two mirrored screen walls that come alive throughout the show with footage that gives form to the invisible forces that propelled Julia Gillard towards her destiny. We are taken through a Welsh wasteland of grief and coal, thrown upwards on the wings of jubilant ‘80s pop as Julia came into herself as a “hot young redhead”, flying on the cusp of her adult life. And then, as she enters the inner echelons of power, we see only the back of her gleaming red bob and brilliant blue jacket – the suggestions of what’s to come moving slowly into focus.

Gillard’s experience exposes the great Australian lie: that we are a society that treats women well

Clarke’s performance is purely magnificent. Her ability to seamlessly slip on the skin and voices of so many different people is mind blowing, leaving the audience vocally breathless at pretty much everything she does. When she imitated Tony Abbott’s laconic half-smile on opening night, it was so excruciatingly smug and so bizarrely accurate that several people actually screeched. She manages to perfectly balance a distinctly Aussie brand of humour with profound emotional gravity. 

Plus, she is just really, really funny. Even if you’re not a fan of politics, you’ll probably enjoy Clarke squeakily gasping: “I’m the first female deputy prime minister of Australia. Fuck yes”. 

Clarke’s performance is shadowed on stage by a mostly mute Jessica Bentley, representing a young woman who seemingly exists to reflect the ‘voiceless Australian girl’, with her only speaking to the audience once *that speech* is done. This trope feels a little cheesy, and brings to mind the dangers of overly mythologising politicians – and to their credit, the creators do try to note this. Gillard’s decision to re-open offshore processing for asylum seekers is brought up, as is her ‘no’ to marriage equality – a moment that generated a sad, breathy sigh from an audience that was desperate to blindly support her. This being said – no man, woman or politician is perfect, and Gillard’s courage and efficiency in so many other areas of policy were reiterated multiple times, with us reminded that she passed more bills in the senate than any other leader in Australian history. 

The show is rich with relatable Aussie political and cultural references, liberally using the word ‘fuck’, and generally showcasing the insanity of the sexism that Gillard was forced to endure while in office. We are taken through the infamously disgusting moments of the “small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box”; how she was dubbed “deliberately barren”; and how, despite calling for an election to be legally voted prime minister, nobody called her that – instead preferring to refer to the leader of Australia as, simply, “Julia”. 

As a young Australian woman in 2023, it is concerning for me to see how much harder women have to fight to be noticed in houses of power. Gillard’s experience exposes the great Australian lie: that we are a society that treats women well. 

The story told on this stage is obviously a very specific one, however there lies a slight missed opportunity to reflect the reality of the modern Australian female experience. This lens is overwhelmingly white, and talks about Australian misogyny solely through the eyes of the white, educated, second-wave Australian feminists who came into being in the 1980s. This brand of feminism (although obviously valuable) leaves little room for nuance. In Julia, there is little mention of the many socially and economically disadvantaged and non-white women that exist in this country – and for whom, sexism is a lifelong prison from which no (admittedly brilliant) speech will free them. 

This isn’t to cast blame on Gillard, who did what she had to do to get by in a world built and maintained by men, but I do feel this production discusses sexism in a way that  placates men, declaring it as “boring to talk about”. This may be so, but I know for a fact that many women don’t find discussing their own oppression that banal – but maybe, that’s just me. 

This all being said, the final speech, as delivered by Clarke, is, for all intents and purposes, perfect.  On the night I bore witness, time, space and history all fell away for a moment on the Drama Theatre stage at the Opera House – and .we all felt like we were sitting on the benches in Canberra on a nondescript October day in 2012, watching something very important being born. 

Julia is an intoxicating and fascinating experience that hits something deep and resounding within us. It shows us that at the end of it all, power comes and goes, reputations rise and fall, but if there is one thing that endures – it’s the truth. 

And, at the heart of it, truth is exactly what Julia is all about. 

Feeling dramatic? Check out the best theatre to see in Melbourne this month.

When Red Stitch Actors' Theatre put on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in late 2023, the gripping play enjoyed a critically acclaimed run. Now, in a historic partnership between Red Stitch, GWB Entertainment and Andrew Henry Presents, the production is returning for a mainstage commercial season at the Comedy Theatre in June and July.  

For the first time in Red Stitch's 23 year history, the Melbourne-born theatre company has secured a commercial partnership which will see the production transferred from its 80-seat converted church hall home, to a mainstage theatre. This landmark partnership is reminiscent of arrangements common in major theatre capitals like London and New York, where independent theatre productions often transfer to the mainstage.

Time Out reviewed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? during its initial run last year. Read on for our 2023 review of the production.

The Red Stitch Actors' Theatre in St Kilda East – piled with books and boasting a fully stocked bar – sets the stage for a night of emotional warfare in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The space is cosy, which will later prove constricting for bottle throwing and violent throttling, but works to confine Martha (Kat Stewart) and George (David Whiteley) in their suburban marital hell. 

Albee’s script endures for its unflinching dissection of a marriage marred by rage and
disillusionment, sharpened with barbed insults and clever repartee. Debuting in 1962, the
play echoes the era’s anxieties – unrest, success, failure and mid-life existentialism – yet
remains relevant today. Still, it’s Martha and George’s mutually destructive duel you stay seated for.

In award-winning director Sarah Goodes’ version, subtlety outweighs aggression. Stewart’s (The Little Dog Laughed, The Shape of Things and TV hits Offspring, Underbelly) Martha exudes a delicate cruelty; she’s compelling as she ridicules George with air smooches, a baby voice and wall thrusting. Opposite her, Whiteley as George is suave, consistently deadpan and less pummelling in his verbal salvoes – but the intimate theatre space may have demanded more tonal variation from Whiteley to effectively deliver the sharper, biting lines required of the dialogue.

Albee’s script thrives on the explosive chemistry of its central couple – a daunting shadow
cast by the infamous performances of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1966 film
adaptation. This comparison is difficult to escape when examining Stewart and Whiteley; here the edges of their sparring take on a softer, less vicious quality – but amusing, nonetheless. The contrasting chemistry between George and Nick (Harvey Zielinski), and the unexpectedly tender camaraderie between Martha and Honey (Emily Goddard) is electric.

Zielinski plays Nick with priggishness and likability, warming into the character with each
sip of bourbon. Goddard is skilfully pitiful in her portrayal of Honey (at one point, she returns with vomit down her dress), with her comedic timing garnering energetic laughs from the audience.

The roaming moments are interrupted by well-known scenes: George’s surprise shotgun and
a fun choreographed dance number. In this version, a flower crown and a tambourine appear alongside a jaunty re-telling of George’s failed novel, adding sensuality and a nice nod to his earlier pagan reference to Martha. In the ensuing argument, Honey’s howl for
“more violence” is pertinent, still, it’s an affecting scene bolstered by Albee’s script: “There is no moment anymore when we could come together… snap!”

As the play winds down to its harrowing conclusion, the stage design, with its golden hues
and static blues, accentuates Harriet Oxley’s mid-century set. Reality and illusion – the play’s base – coalesce, aided by atmospheric sound design, Ivy League cardigans and swaying forest projections.

Stewart is a brilliant crier and lets her tears run liberally as the production meets its
bitter end. While the play simmers without exploding, its finale remains moving (there were tears from the audience on opening night), forewarning viewers of the future humiliations, inescapable comprises and a love that will rise with Sunday.

'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' is showing at Red Stitch Actors' Theatre until December 17. For more information, head to the website.

For more theatrical brilliance, check out the best productions in Melbourne this month.

My first encounter with the viridescent power of Wicked was through the sliding door of a suburban dance studio. Face pressed against the glass, I strained to hear the optimistic refrains of ‘One Short Day’, eyes bulging and dopamine levels skyrocketing. So widespread is the pop-cultural impact of this fan favourite musical, that half of Melbourne likely has a similar memory of discovering Wicked. 

This faithful revival of the bewitching blockbuster sees the show fly into Melbourne for the third time in 15 years with an abundance of pine-hued pizazz, after celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Broadway premiere at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. It’s also worth noting that the Gregory Maguire novel that forms the basis of the plot was published back in 1995. After all this time, it’s only fair to check in and ask: does Wicked remain evergreen?

The costumes, choreography and sets are as slick as they come, which is exactly what’s expected from a show that’s had this many chances to get it ‘right’. This version of Wicked is not reinventing the wheel – instead it’s the cast who keep the cogs turning in a fresh way.  

There’s no mistaking that these performers are magical. While Melbourne always loves to get a show before Sydney, our advantage here is that the cast has had time to fully take command of their characters – and they’re flourishing. 

Courtney Monsma’s G(a)linda is slap-your-knees, let-out-a-squeal funny. She re-shapes the virtue-signalling mean girl role and makes Glinda that much easier to redeem with her masterful timing, quirkiness and propensity for revealing the good witch’s vulnerable side. From soaring operatic highs from within her perfect bubble to a delightfully unexpected grunt or two, Monsma is a delight.

The role of Elphaba is right up there with music theatre’s biggest shoes to fill, and the boots fit Melbourne local Sheridan Adams just right. Her beautiful voice carried her through two demanding acts and her emotional chemistry with Monsma helped us invest in the reconciliation arc between two complex female friends who are often at odds. As for the Big Moment, Adams’ commanding ‘Defying Gravity’ delivered goosebumps galore.

Simon Bourke has joined as The Wizard for Wicked’s Melbourne season, spending only a few days away from the Regent Theatre after finishing up Moulin Rouge! The Musical on the same stage. The legendary performer brings a cheeky swagger to the role, alongside fellow icon Robyn Nevin who is convincingly conniving as Madame Morrible. Liam Head’s Fiyero has far from an empty head, regardless of his initial proselytising on the unexamined life. After making her stage debut in the Melbourne season of Hamilton, Shewit Belay gives a layered performance as Nessarose, the soon-to-be Wicked Witch of the East.  

At first glance Wicked might read as a fairytale-adjacent flight of fancy, but this sparkling musical is rich with sociological themes and political allusions. A woman shunned because of her uncompromising activism and the colour of her skin; a literal scapegoat silenced because of his species (a heart-wrenching Adam Murphy); a government figurehead relying on smoke and mirrors. The parallels are easy to draw, and this is the most pressing reason Wicked remains a narrative Australian audiences should be apt to learn from. However, from a musical that laments that “Oz is becoming less and less colourful”, it would have been wonderful to see further diversity reflected in the casting.

More than a simple family musical, this principled tale asking why wickedness happens (or is perceived to happen) will likely always remain relevant. While there’s perhaps some room to consider how this stellar story could be reimagined in the future, diehard fans and newcomers alike will be blown all the way to Oz by these stunning performances. 

Wicked is playing at the Regent Theatre until July 28. Tickets for the general public are on sale now via the website. 

Love the ol'razzle dazzle? Check out what other new and upcoming musicals are coming to Melbourne. 

It’s a tale as old as time, but the Australian premiere of Disney Theatrical’s Broadway blockbuster Beauty and the Beast is getting a modern makeover ahead of its run at Melbourne's Her Majesty's Theatre from June 27. The production will head to Melbourne off the back of a run at Brisbane's Lyric Theatre.

The enchanting tale – which Time Out Sydney crowned five stars – will be brought to life in a reimagined production from the producers of The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Aladdin and Frozen. Audiences can expect to be bedazzled by the cutting-edge technology, costumes and Broadway-style dance numbers paired with live orchestral scores by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. 

Based on the 1991 animated Disney film, the classic romance story of Belle and her Beast will feature a stellar all-Australian cast including Brisbane's Shubshri Kandiah as Belle, Brendan Xavier as Beast and Melbourne's Rohan Browne in the role of Lumiere. Brisbane's Jackson Head will step into the role of Gaston, Cogsworth will be played by Melbourne's Gareth Jacobs and Gold Coast's Jayde Westaby will play Mrs Potts. For the full cast and creative team, visit the website here.

Beauty and the Beast will be staged at Her Majesty's Theatre in June 2024. Tickets are now on sale here.

Love the ol'razzle dazzle? Check out the best theatre and musicals in Melbourne this month.

Spotlighting the archetypally ‘odd couple’ relationship between Shane Jacobson and Todd McKenney, Neil Simon’s classic comedy The Odd Couple is taking to the stage at the Melbourne's Comedy Theatre this year – with the entertaining pair bringing to life the delightfully dysfunctional journey of the two main characters.

Having met on the Channel 7 TV series The Real Full Monty back in 2018, the pair have become something of a double act: working together on Mates on a Mission and The All New Monty, and on stage in The Rocky Horror Show and the Broadway production of Hairspray (where they played a very convincing husband and wife). The casting of the pair in Neil Simon’s Tony Award-winning comedy further solidifies them as a duo – with the characters of Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison having previously been reprised by famous duos including Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, Martin Short and Eugene Levy, Jamie Farr and William Christopher and British comedians Bill Bailey and Alan Davies.

The comedic play – which was first staged on Broadway in 1965 – documents the changing friendship between two recently single writers who find themselves living together while both processing relationship breakdowns, professional challenges and personal revelations. The main throughline focuses on the wildly different characters and how their unique traits inform their relationships – with other people, themselves and (crucially) with one another. 

With prolific producer John Frost at the helm, Sydney-based theatrical entertainment agency Crossroads Live will bring the production to life at the Comedy Theatre from May 18 until June 23. 

“I’ve long been a fan of Neil Simon’s work and have been waiting for the right pair of actors to play Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple,” said Frost. “When I witnessed the great friendship between Shane Jacobson and Todd McKenney, and how wonderfully they work together on stage, I knew I’d found my perfect Oscar and Felix. I know audiences are going to love The Odd Couple and getting to know these mismatched flatmates all over again.”

Learn more and secure your tickets over here.

Looking for more theatre suggestions? Here’s the best theatre to see in Melbourne this month

Broad Encounters, the folks behind last year’s large-scale, free-roam production Love Lust Lost and 2019’s A Midnight Visit, have announced another immersive show opening this June. This time around, they’re embracing the immediacy of a smaller-scale space, with their latest show billed as an intimate soirée for small groups.

When Night Comes is a multi-sensory theatrical experience that promises to be intoxicating in more ways than one. Set across fantastical yet hedonistic spaces, those who dare to enter will be introduced to a dark, decadent and delicious den where the cocktails are as enticing as the gazes of the cast. 

Expect sublime sounds, visions, tastes and feelings – it’s all part of the celestial show. The production is set within a section of Collingwood’s Austral Theatre, one of Melbourne’s original beloved dance halls which first opened in 1921. The building will be demolished soon to make way for apartments, so this could be one of your last chances to take a peek inside Melbourne’s history.

Head over to Collingwood from June 11 to catch When Night Comes for a strictly limited season with sessions already selling fast. Tickets are from $63 and available until August 3. Head to the website to book now. 

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Feeling theatrical? Check out the best theatre and musicals happening in Melbourne right now.

Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond is a magnificently complex creation. Originally depicted by Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder’s magnetic 1950 movie, she’s the star of countless silent movies, a living legend accruing thousands of adoring fans during her heyday. But the talkies took over Hollywood, and her light was cruelly dimmed, sending her retreating to her decaying hilltop mansion with loyal butler Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim).

While Norma cuts a tragic figure in her middle ages as the story begins, she can still command a room. “I am big. It’s the movies that got small,” she acidly enunciates at down-on-his-luck movie writer Joe Gillis (William Holden in the movie) when he unexpectedly shows up at her door. Spying a way back to the spotlight through his words, she sets him to work on her chaotic Salome screenplay, abusing her money as power over him.

As a noir-tinged chamber piece,Sunset Boulevard hangs on this increasingly twisted relationship, dancing between dark and the light as moments of hope are dashed to doom.It’s just the stuff The Phantom of the Opera maestro Andrew Lloyd Webber thrives on, eventually securing the story after a tortuously long ‘will they, won’t they’ that thwarted both Swanson and Stephen Sondheim.

Webber’s soaring musical adaptation – with Phantom-like stirrings over a book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton – returns to Australian stages, care of Opera Australia, almost thirty years after Debra Byrne and Hugh Jackman tackled this toxic duo. And there’s a certain symbolic swish to Phantom star Sarah Brightman, who long-ago eschewed musical theatre in favour of a pop-opera career, donning Norma’s elaborately sequinned gowns. But has her lustre rusted like Norma’s chances?

Let’s start with what works. Dashing Jagged Little Pill lead Tim Draxl cuts a fine figure in  Joe’s soon-to-be-much-suaver suits. If he’s not quite as hard-boiled as Holden, he certainly brings an insouciant swagger to the role. But it’s opposite Ashleigh Rubenach, rather than Brightman, that he truly pops, with real sparkle between his jaded hack and her hopeful Betty Schaefer. She’s a would-be writer with grand plans of rising above the slush pile she sifts through for Troy Sussman’s gar-chomping movie exec, Sheldrake.

Their witty banter, as he continually rebuffs her attempts to polish his abandoned script for Dark Windows, enlivens the jazzy swing of the ‘Let’s Have Lunch’ reprise, a fantastic ensemble number (and the ensemble is fantastic) that brightens act one. Betty’s actual beau, Artie Green, doesn’t get much of a look-in with her eyes on Joe and the show mostly pushing him to the sidelines, as charming as Jarrod Draper is in the underwritten part. 

But Betty and Joe’s toe-to-toe is the smoking gun that will ignite Norma’s fury, with her command to Max (a steadfast Robert Grubb) to keep her writer housebound a miserable failure. Oh, but what a house, with (ritzy) costume and set designer Morgan Large’s gothic mansion, arguably the greatest star of all.  

Look how the elaborately flocked wallpaper in silvery grey and shadow suggests the lustrous black and white of film, and how this darkness appears to leech, mould-like, into the surrounding Princess Theatre. Wonderfully amplified by Mark Henderson’s lighting, the chiaroscuro effect is a celluloid dream that flows freely into George Reeve’s dramatic car chase animations, projected onto a spider web-like lace curtain. 

Visual splendour abounds, but the show’s a pale imitation of the Wilder movie, with its much more nuanced unravelling. Webber’s score lacks the operatic swirl of Phantom, beyond the haunting melancholy suspended in the dramatic pairing of ‘The Perfect Year’ and ‘New Ways to Dream’. The vertiginous downfall of the narrative sees the score beating ceaselessly forward towards the body floating in the pool that opens the show. 

Alas, the real casualty here is Brightman’s faded performance. No one can take away her past glories, but they seem far behind now. Gone is the gusty delivery, lost in the rain with a reedy vibrato that swallows most of the first act’s best lines. She musters a little more oomph in the second act, but there’s none of Swanson’s stature in her sparring with  Joe, as much as Draxl’s valiantly rooting for her to take flight. While many will come to marvel at a mighty star of yesteryear, Silvie Paladino’s Tuesday evening and Wednesday matinee performances might offer a touch more brightness to this sunset.

Sunset Boulevard is playing at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne for a strictly limited season. Tickets are now on sale here for shows until August 11. The production will also play at the Sydney Opera House in August 2024. 

Love a night at the theatre? Here are the best musicals on this month.