I LOVE YOU. YOU'RE PERFECT. NOW CHANGE

 

I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change. Music by Jimmy Roberts. Book and Lyrics by Joe Dipietro.

Directed by Janie Lawson. Assistant Director and Choreographer Amy Campbell. Musical Direcor and keyboard. Leo Amadeus. Violin Laura Lay. Set Design Cate Clelland. Concept sSet Design Janie Lawson. Lighting Design Craig Muller. Sound Design James McPherson. Costume Design Louise Newey. Stage Manager and Lighting Operator Liz Phillis. Sound Operator and Mic Technician Logan Steed. Producer Anne Somes. Free Rain Theatre. ACT HUB 19 August- 5 September 2026. Bookings: enquiries@acthub.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

The cast of I Love You. You're Perfect. Now Change

Director Janie Lawson makes an impressive directorial debut with her Free Rain production of Jimmy Roberts’ and Joe Dipietro’s I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change. Lawson herself is an acclaimed musical theatre performer and she has turned out a treat.  This is an absolutely delightful show, jam packed with hilarious comedy, catchy tunes and familiar insights into the power and fickle frailty of Love over we mere mortals.  

Amelia Andersson-Nickson and Sarah Copley in
I Love You. You're Perfect. Now Change

On entering the ACT HUB theatre I am instantly struck by Janie Lawson’s concept and Cate Clelland’s simple design of a chess board with a variety of identifiable chess pieces spread about the floor. The irony is inescapable; the statement black and white. The female Queen is the most powerful piece upon the board, able to attack or defend at will. The male King is the most defenseless, forced to retreat under attack until cornered and checkmated to end the game.

David Pearson and Sam Thomson in I Love You. You're Perfect. Now Change

Lyricist and writer Joe Dipietro takes an affectionate and slightly satirical swipe at the sexes and their love dilemmas in a series of short vignettes from dating to meeting the parents to sexting, the marriage, gay love, sex in marriage and love in old age. A company Prologue and harmonious Epilogue bring this wild and wonderful journey to an end at which monastic expectation is shed for a new beginning. Composer Jimmy Roberts suits the music to the scene from pop to Country and Western to Hip Hop and Tango all underpinning the singer’s struggle within the situation, all embraced by the full cast cantata to lead you through the stories.

The Wedding Scene from I Love You. You're Perfect. Now Change

Lawson has gathered an excellent cast of six talented performers, each with their moment to shine, solo or in duet. Deborah O’Toole and Amelia Andersson-Nickson bemoan the lack of male prospects in Single Man Drought. Connor McNaught shows a sensitive side to the man in Tear Jerk with Sarah Copley who lends a touch of pathos in her monologue The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz, a cry for help by all divorced single mothers. Sam Thomson lets out the loss of identity in a gay relationship, saddled with the responsibility of raising a child in The Baby Song. It’s a dilemma shared by McNaught and Copley in Marriage Tango  in Sex and the Married Couple. While the younger members of the company reveal the pain of Love through early relationships, marriage and family, DiPietro includes the older couple, played with authentic perception by O’Toole and Pearson. Too many magic moments to mention, this 30 year old Off Broadway musical has stood the test of time with book, lyricS and music that prove thoat Love’s game of chess has not changed. There will be someone in the audience who, like an audience member in 1996 will think, if not cry out “That’s my life.”

David Pearson. Deborah O'Toole, Amelia Andersson-Nickson and Sam 
Thomson in I Love You. You're Perfect. Now Change

It is a pity that from my seat in the front row I could not see Musical Director on keyboard Leo Amadeus and violinist Laura Lay behind a couch. It is to their credit that keyboard and violin were sufficient to accompany the singers and at the same time capture the spirit of Roberts’ music and Dipietro’s lyrics. Off Broadway has come to ACT HUB with a wonderful cast of local performers and this is an opportunity not to miss. Audiences will laugh, Some may shed a tear. All will see a bit of their lives performed by a cast that make every moment shine.

Photos by Janelle McMenamin

Promotional Photography by Andrew Sikorski

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change. Music by Jimmy Roberts. Book and Lyrics by Joe Dipietro.

Directed by Janie Lawson. Assistant Director and Choreographer Amy Campbell. Musical Direcor and keyboard. Leo Amadeus. Violin Laura Lay. Set Design Cate Clelland. Concept sSet Design Janie Lawson. Lighting Design Craig Muller. Sound Design James McPherson. Costume Design Louise Newey. Stage Manager and Lighting Operator Liz Phillis. Sound Operator and Mic Technician Logan Steed. Producer Anne Somes. Free Rain Theatre. ACT HUB 19 August- 5 September 2026. Bookings: enquiries@acthub.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Director Janie Lawson makes an impressive directorial debut with her Free Rain production of Jimmy Roberts’ and Joe Dipietro’s I Love You. You’re Perfect. Now Change. Lawson herself is an acclaimed musical theatre performer and she has turned out a treat.  This is an absolutely delightful show, jam packed with hilarious comedy, catchy tunes and familiar insights into the power and fickle frailty of Love over we mere mortals.  

On entering the ACT HUB theatre I am instantly struck by Janie Lawson’s concept and Cate Clelland’s simple design of a chess board with a variety of identifiable chess pieces spread about the floor. The irony is inescapable; the statement black and white. The female Queen is the most powerful piece upon the board, able to attack or defend at will. The male King is the most defenseless, forced to retreat under attack until cornered and checkmated to end the game.

Lyricist and writer Joe Dipietro takes an affectionate and slightly satirical swipe at the sexes and their love dilemmas in a series of short vignettes from dating to meeting the parents to sexting, the marriage, gay love, sex in marriage and love in old age. A company Prologue and harmonious Epilogue bring this wild and wonderful journey to an end at which monastic expectation is shed for a new beginning. Composer Jimmy Roberts suits the music to the scene from pop to Country and Western to Hip Hop and Tango all underpinning the singer’s struggle within the situation, all embraced by the full cast cantata to lead you through the stories.

Lawson has gathered an excellent cast of six talented performers, each with their moment to shine, solo or in duet. Deborah O’Toole and Amelia Andersson-Nickson bemoan the lack of male prospects in Single Man Drought. Connor McNaught shows a sensitive side to the man in Tear Jerk with Sarah Copley who lends a touch of pathos in her monologue The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz, a cry for help by all divorced single mothers. Sam Thomson lets out the loss of identity in a gay relationship, saddled with the responsibility of raising a child in The Baby Song. It’s a dilemma shared by McNaught and Copley in Marriage Tango  in Sex and the Married Couple. While the younger members of the company reveal the pain of Love through early relationships, marriage and family, DiPietro includes the older couple, played with authentic perception by O’Toole and Pearson. Too many magic moments to mention, this 30 year old Off Broadway musical has stood the test of time with book, lyricS and music that prove that Love’s game of chess has not changed. There will be someone in the audience who, like an audience member in 1996 will think, if not cry out “That’s my life.”

It is a pity that from my seat in the front row I could not see Musical Director on keyboard Leo Amadeus and violinist Laura Lay behind a couch. It is to their credit that keyboard and violin were sufficient to accompany the singers and at the same time capture the spirit of Roberts’ music and Dipietro’s lyrics. Off Broadway has come to ACT HUB with a wonderful cast of local performers and this is an opportunity not to miss. Audiences will laugh, Some may shed a tear. All will see a bit of their lives performed by a cast that make every moment shine.

Photos by Janelle McMenamin

Promotional Photography by Andrew Sikorski

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

SAPLINGS - Australian Theatre for Young People

 

Saplings by Hannah Belanszky.  Australian Theatre for Young People at The Q, Queanbeyan, Saturday, 22 August 2026, 2pm & 7:30pm

Reviewed by Frank McKone
August 22, 7:30pm

Creative & Production Team
Yuwaalaray Playwright / Writer: Hannah Belanszky
Kalkadoon Director: Abbie-lee Lewis
Associate Director & Producer: Ryan Whitworth-Jones
Dramaturg: Jane FitzGerald; Co-Set & Costume Designer: Angela Doherty; Co-Set & Lighting Designer: Morgan Moroney
Composer & Sound Designer: Michael Weir; Fight Director: Tim Dashwood

Production Manager: Harry Dowling / Abbey Pace
Stage Manager: Milly Grindrod; Producer: Hayden Tonazzi
Workshop Facilitator: George Kemp

Cast (2026 National Tour):
Talijah Blackman-Corowa
Maliyan Blair
Sam Harmon
Danny Howard


Yani wants to go to the Easter Show, Kai wants a sense of home, Shanika wants her Mum back, and Lachlan… well, he just wants his bowl of noodles. But when the justice system is all that stands between these young people and what they want, it raises an important question: how do young people grow when the system keeps cutting them down? This poetic, personal and unexpected production will leave you asking who’s really to blame.
https://www.atyp.com.au/productions/saplings 

Main Youth Characters:
Yani: A young person who simply wants to experience and have fun at the Easter Show.
Lachlan: A teenager out on bail who is hungry and fixated on getting a simple bowl of noodles.
Shanika: A young girl dealing with the pain of missing her mother.
Kai: A character feeling profoundly lost and isolated by the world around them

___________________________________________________________________________________

I must be honest and admit that, at age 85 and needing hearing aids, RAP is not my thing.  Not because of what may be said, but because last night I could understand only an occasional word with everything being so rapidly spoken throughout the play.  

According to ATYP, “Four talented young actors take on multiple roles in this poetic, personal, and unexpected production”, but I can find no record of which actors played which of the four main characters.  I could understand ‘Shanika’ and, I think, ‘Lachlan’, but I think it was Kai, whose loud angry voice until the very last scene, was almost completely incomprehensible to me.

On the other hand, I could see and feel the frustrations of these children, apparently of a dysfunctional family, taking what they saw as opportunities, being jailed for petty thefts without help from self-interested lawyers – until their sister realises she must simply find her own way; while one brother finds symbolic purpose, particularly as a First Nations person, in working for growing native Australian trees and flowers; and finally coming together with his deeply angry brother, forming a sensible brotherhood in that very last scene.

I see the production as an original form, almost of dance-drama – where movement choreography, and sound through voice and recordings, is used to create the characters, and the meaning of the situation is played out in action.

For Canberrans and Queanbeyanites, I am reminded of the Canberra Dance Theatre and the work of Stephanie Burridge in the 1990s, in my feature article for The Canberra Times at https://frankmckone2.blogspot.com/1998/03/1998-feature-article-on-stephanie.html about her show Journey.

Australian Theatre for Young People has a long history of taking an original approach, exemplified once again to our benefit in Saplings.

 

 

 

 

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

 

The Girl on the Train. By Paula Hawkins and the Dreamworks Film. Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel. 

Directed and designed by Chris Baldock. Assistant Director Dale Rheynolds. Lighting Design by Rhiley Winnett and Chris Baldock. Costumes and Props Chris Baldock, Dale Rheynolds and the Cast. Intimacy Consultant Steph Evans. The Studio. Mockingbird Theatre Company and Acting Studio. August 2026.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Morgan Heath Williams as Rachel
 in The Girl on the Train

An air of silent expectation hangs over the audience in the intimate Mockingbird Studio. I cannot remember a time when not a word has been spoken as the audience entered to take their seats for Mockingbird’s production of Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s stage adaptation of Paula Hawkin’s and Dreamwork Film’s The Girl on the Train. Director/Designer Chris Baldock has once again demonstrated his visionary theatrical insight in creating an ambience that arouses intense anticipation, intriguing mystery and gripping involvement in the drama.

Susie Todd as Megan and Timothy Cusack as Scott in The Girl on the Train

Four actors are seated motionless on the octagonal set design. They nurse alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages on their laps, waiting for the performance to begin. It is an auspicious beginning to a drama that captures the suspense and mystery of the film’s adaptation. Baldock has carefully and meticulously fashioned the drama for the intimate theatre in the round, ensuring that we are constantly offered shifting perspectives on the characters’ actions and motives.

A video of a moving train surrounds the space. The sound of shattering glass jerks the audience into attention and in the middle of the space the figure of Rachel Watson (Morgan Heath-Williams) can be seen sprawled bleeding from a cut on the forehead. And so the thrilling crime drama begins in a haze of fragmented memory, random accusation and the bewildering search for the truth.

Paul Sweeney as D.I.Gaskill in The Girl on the Train

Megan Hipwell (Susie Todd) has disappeared. Watson’s alcoholic imaginings draw her into the mystery. She becomes both victim and suspect, determined to uncover the truth through her encounters with her former husband Tom (Robert Weardon), his current wife Anna (Sabrina Fu), Megan’s husband Scott (Timothy Cusack) and Megan’s therapist (Ankush Singh Khanchi). At the same time D.I. Gaskill (Paul Sweeney) is on the case as suspicion builds as Watson finds herself both the accused and the accuser.

Like all good crime fiction, investigation is as much about the characters and their relationships as it is about the complex and convoluted quest to uncover the truth. Dark truths about Rachel’s reliance on alcohol, the secret aspect of Scott and Megan’s marriage, Megan’s tragic past, Tom’s tormented continuing love of Rachel, Anna’s spiteful resentment of Tom and Anna’s past and Kamal’s guilt all contribute to a portrait of the frailty of human nature. Wagstaff and Abel’s characters are all complicit in the drama but it is up to director Baldock and his cast to construct a labyrinth of possibilities that will lure their audience on a search, not only for the ultimate truth, but also for a deeper understanding of the human condition in all its complexity and frailty.

Morgan Heath Williams as Rachel Watson, the girl on the train

Baldock has chosen an outstanding cast. In the eponymous role of the girl on the train, Morgan Heath Williams gives an extraordinary performance as Rachel Watson, charting the agony of alcoholic stupor to crushing self-doubt, loneliness, and eventually alcohol free and fervent determination until she arrives at redemption with the revelation of Megan’s murderer. Heath Williams is an actor to watch and I look forward to her appearance in future productions.

Any actor assuming a central role is only as good as the ensemble that supports him or her and commands a performance as truthful as the others. Heath Williams has an excellent supporting cast, each asserting their individuality in this suspenseful and gripping drama. There is a sense of false motive in Weardon’s performance of Tom. It is a performance that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know that there is something not quite right. Cusack’s Scott surprises with an unexpected streak of violence emerging from a conservative presence. Todd’s Megan evokes both mystery and empathy through effective stillness and ghostly essence. Fu exudes the very resentment and anger of the second wife in  a brittle and expressive performance that reconciles her relationship with Rachel  as the drama reaches its finale. Kanchi’s professional concern and reserve hides the discomfort of inappropriate conduct with Megan as observed from the train by Rachel. It is a subtle study of private shame. There is something entirely endearing about Paul Sweeney’s Detective Inspector Gaskill. It is the cat and mouse lark of a man who knows the art of peeling back the false truth to reach the real truth with a grin. Sweeney’s gumshoe would make an excellent series copper.

Baldock’s use of the space is an excellent example of stage choreography, keeping the audience continually engaged and absorbed in the action and behaviour of the characters. It comes as no surprise that the season should be sold out, and I was only able to see the production on its penultimate night. There is no point in me saying “Don’t miss this outstanding production” but there is every point in commending Mockingbird on another first-rate night at the theatre. Lucky are they who could say they saw it. For those that didn’t, there is always the film. But for my part I prefer the part that live theatre can play in encouraging audiences to look beyond the plot and view the inner world of the characters upon the stage.