When we first glimpse bone-wielding apes careening around a towering, dark monolith in the opening moments of Stanley Kubrick’s epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, we are awestruck and alarmed by its ominous presence.
So, too, the vast pier of the West Gate Bridge that dominates the Southbank Theatre’s Sumner Stage during labourer-turned-playwright Dennis McIntosh’s new work, West Gate. Simply but astonishingly realised by set and costume designer Christina Smith, the foreboding presence of this towering structure makes Cassandras of us all.
Even as the showering sparks of its creation pierce the dark, with lighting designer Niklas Pajanti working hand in glove with Smith to deploy the lighting rig as construction gantries, we are bitterly aware that it will fall, much like Troy.
Is that a spoiler?
Only if you’re oblivious to the tragic history of one of Melbourne’s darkest days.
Just before midday on October 15, 1970, a 112-metre, 2,000-tonne span of the under-construction steel box girder bridge twisted and tore free of its fatally flawed moorings. The cataclysmic plunge of steel and stone erupted in a quagmire of mud and flames.
Still Australia’s biggest industrial disaster to this day, the catastrophe claimed 35 lives, injuring 18 more. The subsequent Royal Commission identified the flawed design of Freeman Fox and Partners, the engineers responsible for another fatal collapse in Wales just a few months earlier, and the removed contractor, World Services and Construction.
A young McIntosh watched the disaster from Sacred Heart Primary School in Newport. By a strange twist of fate, letters intended for an engineer by the name of DF McIntosh, mistakenly wound their way to the future playwright’s home – his dad shared the same initials. McIntosh never forgot the concerns outlined in that correspondence, or the sacrifice of those men, penning this show in their honour.
Powerful stuff. Who else is involved?
Directed and with dramaturgy by Iain Sinclair (A View from the Bridge), this MTC production primarily rests on the shoulders of an endearing Darcy Kent, as an English expat who goes by the nickname Young Scrapper because his fuse is as short as his late dad, and Italian-born actor Steve Bastoni as immigrant father Vittorio/Victor.
The beige palette of the former is unsure of the latter’s “spicy” salami lunches, but despite an initial spikiness, Young Scrapper, bruised by a somewhat vague estrangement from his young family, tucks in under Vittorio’s wing.
Rohan Nichol plays Pat, the gruff but fair gaffer of the worksite, with proud unionism coursing through his (and the show’s) veins, with Simon Maiden as their comrade Vinny.
McIntosh has a firm grasp of the men’s boisterous camaraderie, with the authenticity of their shop talk further built out by composer Kelly Ryall’s sound design, using the auditorium’s speakers to suggest a larger crowd’s melee, as competing forces condemn poor work practices or insist on a pay cheque. Nichol’s charismatic crowd work encourages us to play our part, too.
Then there’s the bosses, in the stuffily suited form of Paul English’s Stevenson, Ben Walter’s Cooper and Peter Houghton’s McAlister, all three of whom are more concerned with their far-behind timelines than safety first.
You mentioned the fall. Surely that’s a tough one to pull off on stage?
Sometimes the best stagecraft is the simplest. While I won’t spoil exactly how Sinclair and co recreate the disaster, what I will say is that it’s genuinely frightening, plunging the auditorium into cacophonous darkness.
As realised by Smith, the twisted aftermath, symbolically smothering Daniela Farinacci’s grieving widow Frankie’s suburban home, allows a sobering sense of the scale of the horror.
A brief bugbear: I’ll never understand the current vogue for dispensing with intervals. Firstly, it’s bad business, losing a theatre a whack that would otherwise be put behind the bar. Secondly, and specifically, West Gate is very much a tale of two halves: before the disaster, and after, when Frankie takes centre stage beside Young Scrapper.
It feels really weird to just carry on with the show without the requisite pause, a major misstep on the part of Sinclair that messes with the flow of a show that’s otherwise smoothly directed.
Is that the only issue?
Sadly not. While McIntosh’s script is at its strongest in the early scenes, with Houghton’s haughty McAlister the most interesting counterpart to the union players, we never get much of a sense of who these men truly are.
Young Scrapper’s backstory feels dashed offstage, which is odd, given West Gate is one hour and 45 minutes without a break, allowing ample time for character development.
Maiden’s Vinny is barely there, with Pat making more impact by the sheer strength of Nichol’s presence. Both Bastoni and Farinacci are saddled with Italian immigrant tropes that are laid on far too thick, lacking the authenticity McIntosh brings to Scrapper and co. But even within that cohort, the dialogue begins to feel clunky and repetitive.
Even in its most obvious moments, the rapport between Kent and Bastoni grounds the first half, and West Gate is genuinely affecting in the aftermath of the catastrophe. Only the hardest of hearts will be entirely unmoved by a silent cheers offered to the fallen in beer and grappa.
Who will love West Gate?
Anyone haunted by that history, or those who know nothing and are keen to find out.
'West Gate' is on now at Melbourne Theatre Company's Southbank Theatre until April 18, 2026. For more information and to book tickets, head to the website.
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