Muriel’s musical makeover is just one of the highlights in a fresh, bold and diverse season.

Sydney Theatre Company has launched its 2017 season with a blockbuster new musical, some classic Chekhov and a host of plays from writers fresh and established, both at home and overseas. While Muriel’s Wedding looks set to catch the headlines, new writing that explores the experience of Australian Thai and Indigenous communities, the British hit play Chimerica, John Bell in Florian Zeller’s The Father and Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary are just some of the intriguing ideas in a programme that offers a deal of fresh insight and unusual perspectives. Add to that a new Upton Chekhov (The Three Sisters), plus hits like Griffin Theatre’s The Bleeding Tree and a radical 1984 fresh from London’s West End, and STC 2017 should have Sydneysiders reaching for their diaries.


Jason Chong and Mark Leonard Winter in Chimerica. Photo by James Green

Of course, this was always going to be the season to watch. The departure of former Artistic Director Jonathan Church several months ahead of the launch of what was to have been his inaugural season for STC might have been expected to throw a bit of a spanner in the artistic works. However, although the British director’s fingerprints seem apparent in the company’s first new musical in several years, there’s still a flavour of the Upton years about some of the programme, not to mention the tastes of the young man currently occupying the STC hot seat, Interim Artistic Director Kip Williams.

“When Jonathan was here he was very collaborative and open in his conversations with myself and Sarah Goodes,” explains Williams, implying that the threads might not have been quite so hard to gather together. “The way the artistic team has realised the season has been a continuation of those conversations, and others that have been going on inside the company for a number of years. I mean, it’s always difficult to pinpoint precisely the authorship of a season, given that commissions can be kicking around inside a company for years before they come to fruition. Jonathan set up some very clear architecture for us, with a vision for how the season would unfold. It wasn’t so much us scratching our heads about how to complete this. It was more about continuing those conversations.”

Williams goes on to identify two central themes in what is quite a contemporary season for STC. New writing – that’s new Australian and international plays – is one. Politics is the other, following audience engagement this year with plays like Disgraced and All My Sons. “There is a misconception that in tough times you programme light, thin comedies to entertain and distract people,” Williams says. “But the advent of online content, and in particular the blossoming of the TV industry, we need to offer more than that in order to encourage someone away from Netflix. And our audiences are responding in droves to political works. They want to come to the theatre to have a conversation, debate ideas, and to be connected to people, not isolated at home, wrapped up in their beds.”

Our audiences want to come to the theatre to have a conversation, debate ideas, and to be connected to people

The year kicks off with Colm Tóibín’s adaptation of his novella, The Testament of Mary, directed by new Resident Director Imara Savage. The work explores the life of Jesus from the unusual perspective of his mother, observing changes in her child over time, and mourning as that child is taken from her and society seeks to claim him as something else. “It’s told in such a beautifully poetic yet personal way. It’s a very human story in that sense,” says Williams. “We’re thrilled to have Alison Whyte in the role. She’s a powerhouse actress with such depth and integrity in everything she does. This will be a spare, beautiful and poetic night in the theatre.”

Michael Gow’s 1986 classic Away follows in a co-production with Melbourne’s Malthouse, another play exploring the relationships between a mother and her children, this time rooted firmly in the Australian psyche. Heather Mitchell, who STC audiences last saw in Hay Fever, heads a cast that includes Liam Nunan (The Golden Age) as her son. “There’s so much loss inside this play,” explains Williams. “It’s fascinating to have these two works in tandem. Tonally different, yet exploring a similar relationship. We’ve been looking at the classics of the Australian cannon, not only looking to revive them but to find a fresh perspective on them.”


Heather Mitchell in Away. Photo by James Green

Next comes Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica, following sell-out seasons in London’s West End, and starring this year’s double Helpmann-winning Mark Leonard Winter. “Kirkwood is one of the great new young female writers in the UK and this is one of her most enveloping works,” Williams explains. “Set half in America and half in China in 2012, we follow Joe, a photographer who took one of the original photos of the man who stood in the path of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. When a bit of information is leaked to him, it sets him on a path trying to uncover the identity of ‘Tank Man’. So it’s a thriller and there’s a real detective story to it. But China is one of the biggest issues in the 20th century, and how it makes sense of a burgeoning middle class filled with new capitalist consumers. It has this cinematic scope. It’s a big cast, three hours, and I think directorially it will have very a visual, cinematic style to it. It will definitely be a big night out.”

For those who missed it, Griffin Theatre’s The Bleeding Tree, which starred Paula Arundel, was accounted breathtaking by all the critics. 2017 will see STC enable its move to a larger stage. “It’s extraordinary writing, an absolute corker,” Williams enthuses. “The issue of domestic violence is such an important one for us to be talking about, and the play does it so intelligently and so sensitively. You’re swept up in this Gothic nightmare, but there’s a sense of redemption and survival and fighting back at the centre.” By contrast, STC will also bring State Theatre Company of South Australia’s production of The Popular Mechanicals to Sydney for the 30-year anniversary of the production, originally directed by Geoffrey Rush. The side-splitting show focuses on the ‘clowns’ of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and was one of this year’s hits in Adelaide.


The Bleeding Tree featuring Airlie Dodds, Paula Arundell and Shari Sebbens. Photo by James Green

An STC commission follows with Jonathan Biggins’ new play Talk. “We all know what a brilliant mind and what a comedian Biggins is. His social commentary is just first rate, some of the best in the country, and we saw that in Australia Day,” Williams explains. “But this is a meatier critique than we’re used to. Here he focuses on the media, particularly the 24-hour media cycle. It laments the loss of long form journalism, and the rise of these demigod shock jocks.” Biggins himself directs John Waters, who returns to STC for the first time in over a decade to play the shock jock in question (a man not unlike Derryn Hinch, according to Williams).

Williams considers the new play from Nakkiah Lui as one of the most exciting in the season. Black is the New White is a Christmas rom com set in a middle class Indigenous family with set ideas about the direction in which it is headed. “Charlotte is a highly successful lawyer with a television deal,” Williams explains. “Her father is a respected Indigenous politician, who has given a speech on rights that has gone viral. Everything goes awry when the other daughter brings home a boyfriend, who is not only an unemployed, experimental cellist, he is also the white son of the father’s political nemesis. It’s a very funny work, but at its core it’s asking a progressive and contentious question about what does means to be black in Australia.”


Black is the New White star Shari Sebbens. Photo by James Green 

In keeping with STC’s tradition of bringing works from the international stage (King Charles III, One Man Two Guvnors etc), next year will see British company Headlong Theatre bringing its award-winning version of 1984 to Sydney. A hit when it was seen for a short run at last year’s Melbourne Festival, this time it returns for an Australian tour with an Australian cast. A multimedia exploration of mind control and ubiquitous surveillance, Orwell’s chilling classic might never have seemed so relevant.

Williams himself had a big success last year with Caryl Churchill’s Love and Information, and now he will turn his attention to an earlier work, Cloud Nine. The play’s first half is set in colonial Africa, while its second is set 100 years later in modern London, though the actors have only aged 25 years! “This is my favourite play by Caryl Churchill,” Williams explains. “She’s so inventive formally, people can’t pin her down, and that kind of radical nature means it takes a lot of theatrical imagination to interpret a script of hers. Cloud Nine is both moving and laugh out loud funny. It explodes identity politics in the most profound way; racial politics; class and gender politics; and politics of sexuality.”


Harry Greenwood in Cloud Nine. Photo by James Green

Another new play is Australian Graffiti by 22-year-old Thai playwright Disapol Savetsila, the youngest writer ever to have been commissioned by STC for its main stage program. “He’s essentially telling a migrant story, the story of his parents, who are setting up a Thai restaurant in a country town,” Williams elaborates. “All their previous restaurants have failed, and they are progressively moving west in the search for success. Unfortunately, in this town, the locals are more resistant to a Thai family. It encapsulates the idea of the parental generation making sacrifices for their children, yet it is being told from the perspective of the child. We’re very excited by this!”

Next comes John Bell in The Father, a work by Florian Zeller, a French writer, that that has generated a lot of attention overseas. The play is never clear about whether Bell’s character is a former tap dancer living with his daughter Anne, or whether he was an engineer whose daughter lives in London. “It’s structured like a thriller in which you ride all the way to the end as things unravel for the man,” Williams explains. “In the hands of John Bell, this will be a really tender, moving night. We think this will be better than the Broadway production,” he cheekily notes.


The Father stars John Bell. Photo by James Green

Moira Buffini’s Dinner follows, the first time STC has programmed a work by this successful, British writer known for her biting, sharp plays. A sinister celebratory meal turns very dark indeed with characters that Williams says bear a resemblance to the acerbic George and Martha from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe. Caroline Brazier (known for TV appearances in Rake) stars, Imara Savage directs. “We’ve got quite a lot of comedy throughout the season,” says Williams, “but all are intelligent investigations. Dinner really goes for the preoccupations and the foibles of the middle class. It’s also filled with the most delicious one liners and great plot twists. It’ll be a fantastic night out.”

With STC’s The Present opening on Broadway at the end of this year and running until March, it seems appropriate to wind up the new season with another Andrew Upton adaptation of a Chekov – this time The Three Sisters. Williams will direct, Alice Babidge will design, and the production will feature Erin Jean Norvill who has worked with Williams previously in Romeo and Juliet, Suddenly Last Summer and most recently in All My Sons. Chris Ryan and Brandon McClelland, both headed for Broadway, will return to Sydney and join the cast.

And finally, one of the worst kept secrets of the STC season will be Muriel’s Wedding The Musical. PJ Hogan, who wrote the original film script, is updating the book to bring it into the here and now of modern-day Australia. “This is going to be one of the events of the year for us,” says Williams, excitedly. “The film has endured, I think, because it isn’t just a light piece of entertainment. It’s such a fascinating, deeply funny, intelligent exploration of Australian cultural life – how family works, how class works, how aspiration works. It’s also quite a dark film, with the difficult relationship between Muriel and her father.”

Fresh from her success on The Rabbits, Kate Miller-Heidke will be writing the music with Keir Nuttall, and of course there’ll be the de rigueur ABBA classics – “can’t do Muriel without Waterloo,” says Williams. The show will be directed by musicals guru Simon Phillips, with designs by the magnificently visual Gabriela Tylesova. Casting is yet to be announced, so if you think you have big enough hair, start practicing your Dancing Queen routine now.


Sydney Theatre Company Season Tickets are on sale from September 13

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