Roslyn Packer Theatre, March 25
8/10
How many novels spawn a film, play, musical and forthcoming TV series? The fascination with Miles Franklin’s 1901 story continues because protagonist Sybylla’s debunking of patriarchal ideas of marriage as fulfillment for a woman, instead following a nascent dream of being a writer, so radical in its day, still echoes loudly.
Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film remains a hard act to follow, proven by Kendall Feaver’s disappointing 2020 play. This 2024 Melbourne Theatre Company musical adaptation, with book by Sheridan Harbridge and Dean Bryant, music by Matthew Frank, lyrics by Bryant, and directed by Ann-Louise Sarks, Sydney Theatre Company now presents with the same key participants.
Just as the book was a beacon in Australian literature, so this is something of a groundbreaking musical. Its innovation is an ingenious blend of the vernacular of then and now in the dialogue and lyrics, mirrored in Marg Horwell’s sets and costumes. Frank’s music, meanwhile, mainly leans into Sybylla’s rebelliousness via a punk-folk idiom played by the cast, augmented by musical director Victoria Falconer’s violin and keyboards and Jarrad Payne’s exceptional drumming. The remaining eight performers act, sing, dance and often play more than one instrument.
However well those boxes were ticked, there’d be no show without the right Sybylla, and Kala Gare is certainly that. The creators have initially made Sybylla angrier than Franklin’s, which slows our warming to her, so it’s not until she’s escaped her impoverished family to stay with her more genteel grandmother and aunt that she really wins us over with a ravishing song called In the Wrong Key. Sarks’ staging of the song becomes ever more compelling, until Gare’s atop the upright piano, singing her heart out of her desire for a higher plane of living; of writing and music.
While Gare delights in the teenaged Sybylla’s whirlwind of mischief, sarcasm, wit, emotional confusion, morbid depression and vivacity, Raj Labade unleashes his capacity for smouldering and swaggering as Harry, Sybylla’s love interest. It works, but is somewhat undermined by the songs he sings. That the hyper-intelligent Sybylla would fall for Harry must be completely convincing, or her decision to pursue her career is robbed of all its dramatic tension.
Among the rest, Melanie Bird stands out in three roles, including Blanche, the Melbourne beauty who’s chasing Harry, and a hilarious Liza, the most pliable of the unruly M’Swat children, whom Sybylla is sentenced to teach.
The production’s early tendency to be overly shouty and frenetic eases towards the end of Act One, and then stays in a more emotionally sophisticated and complex place, buttressed by moments of gorgeous design and direction. Perhaps, structurally, it would have worked slightly better if, disobeying Franklin, the creators introduced Harry sooner. That’s where the story really starts of a young woman defying convention and daring to believe in carving out her own life. Chances are, you’ll be cheering Gare by the end.
Until April 26.
https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2026/my-brilliant-career