“It is simply excellent theatre, made with the kind of creative integrity and political clarity that most mainstage companies would be proud to claim.”
Kate Gaul
5 stars
Venue: ATYP at Sydney Opera House, until 17 May — then touring nationally
“Would you risk breaking bail for a packet of Mi Goreng?”
The answer, it turns out, is yes. Obviously yes. And the fact that you understand exactly why, without hesitation, without judgement, tells you everything about what Saplings achieves in its seventy or so minutes on stage.
This is theatre made from real stories: workshops and interviews with young people inside the youth justice system, from Marrickville to Moree. Yuwaalaraay playwright Hannah Belanszky has turned those voices into something that is simultaneously a collection of vignettes and a sustained, quietly devastating argument. The justice system, the play suggests, does not so much punish young people as interrupt them -catches them mid-reach for something ordinary and human, and calls that a crime.
Director Abbie-lee Lewis, a Kalkadoon artist, proves herself exceptional here. The production has the confidence of something that knows exactly what it is: precise where it needs to be, loose and funny where looseness serves the story, and devastating without a single moment of manipulation. That’s a hard balance and she lands it every time.
Four performers carry the whole thing, each playing multiple characters across intersecting stories, and the ensemble is remarkable. Maliyan Blair brings charisma and genuine heart – you feel his energy in the room from the moment the play starts. Sam Harmon, with the clarity and technical polish you’d expect of a NIDA graduate, delivers nuance that makes every shift between characters feel earned. Danny Howard is the kind of performer you simply want more of – warm, grounded, impossible not to root for. And newcomer Talijah Blackman-Corowa holds her own with real authority against her more experienced theatre colleagues, and with a promise that this production would be lucky to contain for long.
Angela Doherty and Morgan Moroney‘s co-design is exceptional – spare, intelligent, and alive to the material. Moroney’s lighting does real dramatic work without announcing itself, which is exactly what lighting should do and so rarely does.
The production arrives at the Sydney Opera House for the first time in seventeen years for ATYP, which feels fitting. This is not youth theatre in the sense of apprentice work or earnest effort.
That Saplings is heading to the Victorian Schools Drama Syllabus and eleven venues across five states is, for once, exactly the right call.
Yani wants to go to the Easter Show. Kai wants a sense of home. Shanika wants her mum back. Lachlan wants his noodles. None of these things should be complicated.
The play understands that. So, by the end, will you. Don’t miss it.
Image by Daniel Boud
Kate Gaul, Theatre Now
