Theatre reviews by Joy Lawn include The Spare Room Belvoir St, The Talented Mr Ripley STC, Bloom STC, The Play That Goes Wrong, Opera House, The Glass Menagerie The Ensemble, The Lover & The Dumb Waiter The Ensemble etc.
Read them here.
Big Girls Don’t Cry:
Theatre Review,
other theatre & Art Reviews
My full review of Big Girls Don’t Cry (Belvoir St Theatre) is at ArtsHub.
It’s best to read my review at ArtsHub but here’s a snippet (first paragraph) from the published review, as well as some extra commentary:
“Is Gumbaynggirr/Wiradjuri woman Dalara Williams the Deborah Mailman of her generation? The writer and lead actor in Belvoir St Theatreās play Big Girls Donāt Cry is luminous. She exudes a natural gravitas and emotional intelligence and becomes the storyteller around whom her cast circles.”
Williams’ debut play explores issues involving Aboriginal people, particularly those living in Redfern in the 1960s. It is also a joyous comedy romance.
Three friends, Dalara Williams as Cheryl, Stephanie Somerville as Lulu and Megan Wilding as Queenie seek fun and fairness. Fired from her job, Queenie laments, āThey do this to us all the time. Our lives are hard enough every day. You can be the smartest and most hard-working person in the room, but they still always do this to us ā¦ Iām tired of fighting.ā Queenie refuses to surrender her dignity to a āwhite manā but is rallied by Cheryl’s brother Ernie (Guy Simon) who accompanies her to her workplace to support her while she states her case. This scene is a telling microcosm of Aboriginal struggle in a white-privileged society.
Other cast members are Nic English as Italian love-interest Milo, Bryn Chapman Parish as a brutal, racist policeman and Mathew Cooper as Cheryl’s absent boyfriend. In several scenes, she silently reads his letters sent from the front while he narrates them.
Many of the multiple set changes are carried out by the male cast members dressed in character. They nimbly move the park bench and furniture to represent a bedroom, cafĆ©, town hall and Redfernās (actual) Empress Hotel. 1960s songs and music also introduce scenes and are sung and danced to by the actors. Atmospheric and incidental music and diffused smoke signify other scene changes.
The Aboriginal Debutante Ball is ingeniously staged by director Ian Michael. The backstage room (rather than the more spacious dining and dancing hall) of Paddington Town Hall is replicated as the setting for the finale. The actors turn their backs on the audience to peer through the red velvet backdrop curtain and watch the debutanteās dance (the latter are unseen by the audience). It frames a fascinating ‘fly on the wall’.
Big Girls Don’t Cry is a landmark play that is definitely worth seeing.
Read the full review here
Indigenous Theatre at Belvoir is supported by the Balnaves Foundation.
Big Girls Donāt Cry at Belvoir St Theatre
- Dalara Williams
Writer - Ian Michael
Director - Cast
- Stephanie Somerville
Lulu - Megan Wilding
Queenie - Dalara Williams
Cheryl - Bryn Chapman Parish
Officer Robinson - Mathew Cooper
Michael - Nic English
Milo - Guy Simon
Ernie
Other Theatre Reviews
Read my other theatre reviews (The Spare Room Belvoir St, The Talented Mr Ripley STC, Bloom STC, The Play That Goes Wrong, Opera House, The Glass Menagerie The Ensemble, The Lover & The Dumb Waiter The Ensemble etc) here
paperbarkwords.blog 
2 thoughts on “Theatre Reviews for ArTsHub”