★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Goodwood Theatres. 5 Mar 2025
There are young people who have never heard of Charles Manson. Stephen Sewell’s new play will be a jaw-dropping revelation to them and, indeed, so far as historical reflections go, it comes as a shuddering remembrance for the oldies. This all happened during the time of the Vietnam War, a time of lies, of a perfidious Nixon, of political unrest in the USA.
It was also a time of flower power and tripping out.
Dropping acid is not a “thing” these days, but for those who might remember, playwright Stephen Sewell delivers some graphic imagery from the mind of his wild and warped protagonist, Susan Atkins, or, as renamed by Manson, Sadie Mae Glutz. She was the antithesis to flower power. Go-go girls sometimes were. She was one of the murderous Manson girls, part of “The Family”, and as a deprived teenage San Francisco stripper, she was highly vulnerable to the grotesque fantasies concocted by the charismatic musician. In her bubble of drugs and violence, she thought of him as Jesus. Nasty little brainwashed misfit. And her life, before the years of incarceration, were spent partying and adoring Manson. Oh, and committing the odd appalling murder, including that of the pregnant film star Sharon Tate.
Sewell’s Susan brags and gloats. She chills the blood. She is an unadulterated monster, gripping, fascinating and, in a dark and twisted way beneath the Sewell pen, comical, almost cartoonish. Helen O’Connor’s embodiment is superb. She plays her taut, ever high and remorseless, wild-eyed and driven. O’Connor sustains Atkins’ image as a party girl by nimbly reiterating those Go-go moves of the 60s throughout the play. This underscores a sense of the cult-brain superficiality of that cruel carnival of nasty women Manson had gathered. They blew their minds, plotted and hated while hanging out at the house of Beachboys drummer Dennis Wilson.
This compelling new Sewell work gains substance through the calibre and commitment of O’Connor who is known to many for her high-profile television career in Crownies and Packed to the Rafters.
This is an intense and intimate little psycho drama. Its pieces are sewn together with the unquestioned Sewell stage skill. He is the creator of those monumental works The Blind Giant is Dancing, Traitors, and Welcome the Bright World, along with a stream of other stage and screen works. He’s deemed among the top playwrights this country has produced.
That he should quietly bring a work to be premiered in the Goodwood Theatres on the Adelaide Fringe has surprised many. It an out-of-town run looking towards rebirth in Edinburgh. Waiting for word of mouth.
And approbation is forthcoming. It has “legs” for the rest of the world, especially considering its historic nastiness.
We’re all tired of one-handers and yet, strongly directed by Kim Hardwick with efficient production values, Partying with Manson is a wild and quirky vignette of human awfulness which definitely has what it takes to Go-Go and keep going.
Samela Harris
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: Goodwood Theatres
Bookings: adealaidefringe.com.au
