If you grew up in Sydney, more likely than not, you know this story already. For many of us, Looking for Alibrandi is both a time capsule – rich with the sundrenched haze of Sydney in the ‘90s (John Howard, hairspray, grunge fashion nods) – and also a holy relic; being the first time young Aussie girls with migrant parents were told that they were allowed to belong to Sydney too. I know this, because I am one of them.
The cult status we have given Looking for Alibrandi (whether it be due to a ravenous adoration for the paperback and/or Pia Miranda as Josie in the 2000 film version directed by Kate Woods) makes it a bloody hard act for anyone to try and replicate – a fact that did not escape the cast and crew of Belvoir Street Theatre and Malthouse Theatre co-production Looking for Alibrandi, a two-hour and 20 minute play that makes it Sydney debut this month.
Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo (Loaded), written by Vidya Rajan, and starring half-Samonan, half-Italian actor Chanella Macri as the irrepressible Josie Alibrandi, this theatrical version of the Sydney classic is the very first that author Melina Marchetta has allowed to pass through the proverbial thespian gates.
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Nicolazzo’s rendition of Alibrandi is soaked in nostalgia, but with a distinctly 2022-shaped kick. From the red and white gingham tablecloths in Belvoir’s foyer bar, to the red-lit stage heaped with plastic crates overflowing with rosy plastic tomatoes, we are led into a cosy Italianate womb, courtesy of set designer Kate Davis. With the first act occasionally tending on the chaotic, the second half comes through with intimate lighting, bringing the audience into a tiny family living room, all of us there together, surrounded by Nonna’s photo albums and stray bottles of San Pellegrino.
With a cast of just six, this take on Alibrandi relies on the audience suspending belief, with Lucia Mastrantone playing the two divergent roles of Josie’s tender mother Christina and her brazen mate, Sera. Hannah Monson follows suit, taking on Josie’s private school dream-boy John Barton, as well as her big-time nemesis, Ivy. This decision doesn’t always work, with Mastrantone far more believable while wearing the thoughtful shoes of Josie’s multifaceted mother than the sex-crazed Sera (although there is something to be said for teenagers with the energy of a 40-year-old woman who smokes a pack a day). Monson is underused as John Barton, whose storyline fails to pack the punch that all of us who loved the book were waiting for. The script is at its most naturalistic when Josie, Christina and Nonna (played by Jennifer Vuletic) get into heated spats in Italian, with the delivery otherwise occasionally faltering.
Chanella Macri, on the other hand, is an excellent Josie, with her quality eye-rolling and ability to deliver cheeky wisecracks injecting a vibrancy to the heart of the show that made this reviewer cackle more than once. Macri is a Josie for all of us in 2022, a world that has undeniably changed since the ‘90s, when high schools (nay, the world) were divided along hard lines of “skips versus wogs”. She brings her own intersections of identity to the role. Being both a woman in a bigger body and a woman of colour with a complex cultural mix, Macri is a perfect representation of what ‘otherness’ means for us today. She brings the essence of Josie’s experience in the ‘90s straight into the heart of a Sydney in 2022, where being skinny and Italian no longer means the same thing it did when Marchetta was writing back in the late 1990s.
At the end of the day, Looking for Alibrandi is a story for anyone who has felt othered –whether that be in a racist Sydney private school or not – with Nicolazzo’s updated rendition a warm show sprinkled with the bright and universally recognised moments of teen love, family tenderness and intergenerational trauma. At its essence, the heart of Alibrandi remains strong, with Josie continuing to work her power as the patron saint of Sydney misfits, her fire continuing to burn a rich tomato red, a whole 30 years on. It’s just good to have her back.
