State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 12 Feb 2025
Oh joy.
What a brilliant start to 2025 in the Adelaide Theatre.
What a wonderful buzz percolating through a departing audience.
Housework is a hit.
Emily Steel shines forth as a bright new playwright with this pertinent play profiling the machinations of Australian politics.
Yes, there’s nothing domestic about this housework. It is House of Parliament.
Steel has slipped beneath our political news cycles and explored the hows and, especially the whys of those seeking careers in politics. To this end, she has created an almost perfect cast of characters who profile the inner sanctum machinations of Canberra. Their careers revolve around a newly elected federal MP and her determination to get her policies moving through the system. Yes, she has a feminist agenda. But let’s not say “feminist”.
Her team seeks for her the support of a senior minister in Canberra and her seasoned Chief of Staff, a tense and cynical, perchance battle-scarred, veteran of those hallowed halls has the connections. There are layers and histories which surge to the surface as part of the learning curve of the super-keen new junior staffer, Kelly. Steel has cleverly potted the dramas and vulnerabilities of the capital's soft underbelly with a delicious wry wit. It is a very funny play. And yet, it does not hold back on the truth-telling. It is a skilful satire on that old Westminster system we hold so dear.
It plays its own pun on its title with the prelude scene of the Sunitra Martinelli as the cleaner giving thorough spit and polish to Ailsa Paterson’s expansive set. This is dominated by a huge revolvable meeting table and backgrounded by a pillar-lined “corridor of power”, down which darting figures may hint at the pressure cooker rush of Parliamentary life. Multi-purpose, effective and, under Nigel Levings' inimitable lighting, it also is of very pleasing aesthetic. It brings another production-values star to this fabulous show.
It was commissioned by the wonderful Mitchel Butel as State Artistic Director. What a sterling stamp he leaves on the quality of modern Australian theatre. As they say in the classics, he can pick’em.
Herein, he lifts playwright Emily Steel into the glow of audience headlights as, perhaps a new David Williamson.
And, with Shannon Rush risen as an enlightened and perceptive director with a thrilling program ahead, he leaves Adelaide so much the better. And Australia.
This play has legs. Its political theme follows the zeitgeist of Utopia with a streak of Clarke and Dawe and Gilles and a dash of Yes Minister.
It is clever, funny and finely wrought. A splendour of box ticking,
It is political without fear or favour.
And, of course, it features not only a deliciously quirky percussive musical embellishment by Andrew Howard, but some award-worthy performances.
The ever-elegant Renato Musolino finds that fine line between complacency and deviousness in the political-power-games powerhouse with his portrayal of “call me Paul” in the Federal Ministry.
There’s wonderful veracity in the scene in which everyone is eating dumplings. Really eating, And Musolino is a cheek-bulging phenomenon. There are many pithy touches to this work.
Susie Youssef plays the new MP, at first galling in her ineptitude and then, as Susie develops the character with her excellent comic timing, she emerges as ever more endearing and credible. It is a nice profile of the novice political animal. Then playing the new MP's career foundation chief of staff, Emily Taheny, gives nothing less than a tour de force performance with some absolutely torrential dialogue delivery. Phew. One was surprised she did not score a burst of spontaneous audience applause on opening night. Then again, Housework features a number of applaud-worthy moments both in performances and message. Franca Lafosse is a heavenly innocent abroad as the junior staffer while Benn Welford presents a rather moving portrayal depicting the actual predicament of those who become political media advisors. Oh yes, Emily Steel has not held back. She’s done her homework in those shadowy back rooms and has thrown a few home truths out into the theatrical limelight.
Hence, the satisfaction at the cultural and intellectual feast of this new theatre work which comes complete with a few wee kickers at the end.
Five stars and then some.
Samela Harris
When: 12 to 22 Feb
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: my.statetheatrecompany.com.au
