Even amongst Australian commissioned works, there are very few plays that feel so uniquely Australian and in touch with the Australian zeitgeist, that they will only resonate with an Australian audience and particularly connect with them. Housework is one of these plays and is the latest in Sydney Theatre Company’s season, essentially representing an amalgamation of every political scandal in the country over the past 20 years or so. The play was written by Emily Steel and originally produced for the State Theatre Company of South Australia but, as with much of the work this year that has migrated over as a result of Mitchell Butel, previously the artistic director in South Australia before moving over to Sydney Theatre Company, the play has now made its way to Sydney.
The play centres around Ruth Mandour, who is a nurse in her first term as an MP, with an interest in public health, who quickly finds that passing legislation through her party is not as easy as it would seem. The other characters in this production include Ruth’s Chief of Staff Anna Cooper, her former boss the Minister for Science and the Environment, young staffer Kelly Sheppard and media advisor Ben.
The first thing to say about this production is that the acting is phenomenal from all. Susie Youssef is powerful in her presence as Mandour while Emily Taheny is excellent, showing the torment in her role as Cooper. Johnny Nasser is appropriately suave as the minister while Franca Lafosse appears wide-eyed and seemingly innocent as Sheppard.
Steel’s script is very clever and does a fantastic job of amalgamating all the various political scandals in Australia for both laughs and seriousness when required. The content is witty and clever and very well constructed, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats throughout the entire show.
The writing of the show is very well-layered, and it slowly unweaves the conflict in the show without making it too didactic, which is impressive. However, there was one joke which elicited a little bit of a gasp from the audience and did feel like it was in slightly poor taste in making a joke about the Australian of the Year. It seemed to be based on unnecessary stereotypes and didn’t really add anything to the show, so it was slightly odd that this was included, but on the whole, the jokes landed very well and resulted in a warm ovation from the audience.
Overall, this was a really strong show, which took a very critical eye towards the exploration of gender in politics in Australia and really reflected the times very well. Our political system is somewhat unique in the ground that has been traversed in recent years and a show that could touch this so cleverly and with such wit in the writing was really quite impressive and it was equally well backed up with excellent acting. This is definitely one of the best shows that’s come to Sydney this year, and is well worth a watch for those interested in politics or theatre.
Rating: ★★★★1/2
Housework plays at the Sydney Opera House until 17 October. For more information, click here.
All photo credits: Prudence Upton
Published by Kiran Gupta
