Melbourne Reviews

'All the Snowy Rivers Running Against the Wind in the Never Never' played for so many Terms of our Natural Lives that the very idea of staging another Australian colonial story hovered somewhere between unlikely and unwise (Jimmy Blacksmith at least provided some momentary distraction from the same old same old!).

And yet, a musical adaptation of Miles Franklin's classic Australian novel rounds out MTC's 2024 season?

Long after Henry Lawson's endorsing forward of My Brilliant Career, Gillian Armstrong's 1979 screen adaptation bolstered fondness for Miles Franklin’s most successful work, garnered international acclaim and cemented the career prospects of its two breakout leads, Judy Davis and Sam Neil.

Where Armstrong's work was utterly faithful to the novel’s period, this musical adaptation offers a self-referencing playful approach to era that cleverly enables retrospective and contemporary exploration.

Dean Bryant, Mathew Frank and Sheridan Harbridge have poured years of talent and time into the creation of an extraordinary new work that is both instantly recognisable and yet wonderfully original.

It's also seriously good.

Frustration, aspiration, conformity and constraint. An intelligent young woman of sixteen in 1890s regional Australia rallies against the conventions of her time and thumps away the expectation of female destiny in order to walk a path of her own.

Sybylla Melvyn longed to have her voice heard and now here in 2024 seconds after greeting her 'Fellow Australians’ she’s behind a mic stand like the audacious lead singer of a thrash band! Overused or mishandled, such anarchism can abundantly irritate, but the absolute strength of Anne-Louise Sarks’ direction and restraint is that it rarely, if ever, jars. 

The show’s book lifts directly from the novel for affect and little will feel unfamiliar to those who may have skipped the pages and headed straight to the film for a refresher. Perhaps as a measure to amplify the narratives feminist credentials, there feels to be less romantic charge than in the cinematic take, the deficit being a loss of some dramatic tension with Harry but a boost for Sybylla’s independence. Despite lacking a distinguishable leitmotif, Mathew Frank's score is uplifting in a delight of rousing genre spanning numbers that are brought to life with the energy of an incredible ensemble of actor musicians. Never contrived or clumsy, Dean Bryant’s lyrics feel thoroughly considered, and in harmony with the central character, always witty and smart. Musically, there really is a great deal to enjoy however, it's more likely to be performance over melody that will be memorable.

Sybylla is an enormous role and Kala Gare is outrageously talented. This is an absolute undertaking and Gare’s magnificence cannot be overstated. With swagger and implausible ease, it’s evident she made choices about Sybylla from the outset and then she made them happen. With astonishing vocal and musical ability, Kala Gare is at times genuinely breathtaking; a powerhouse of gifts and joy that she shares openly, directly and fully with an audience.

While it’s not impossible to imagine an adaptation of My Brilliant Career performed by just one person, this version is alive with a cast of supremely talented actors, singers and musicians and they are pretty much, all of those things all of the time. This is an incredibly gifted company all of whom deserve unbelievable credit for seamlessly transitioning through multiple roles, characters and instruments

Marg Horwell's set design feels consciously sparse, evocative of desolation and harsh drought yet bringing forth some really enjoyable simple additions to denote a change of time and place. There's a clever versatility in the costume design, stylised to give just enough hint of the period but in a couple of scenes, a little clumsy and too distant from 1890 to fully work.

This version of My Brilliant Career is an empowering significant work, ambitious in its celebration of ambition. With its quirky take on a solid existing story and a wonderful musical score; there should be incredible optimism around this production finding commercial success beyond its current season and indeed beyond these shores.

Sybylla sings, "If I say what I think, If I say what I see, I might reach someone like me".

Right there; the enduring take home we can all hum – idiomatically – 'You can't be what you can't see'.

There will of course be those who attend this show seeking Downton and leave feeling downgraded to Bridgerton, but, in a time when the merit of a story can be overshadowed by the apparent right of someone to tell it, and the attributes of an actor considered more important than those of the character they're playing, it's worth reflecting on this new work in parallel with its protagonist, for it may, too easily, have found it itself unfairly stifled and overlooked by its era.