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| Winsome Ogilvie as Millie in "Kerosene" |
Assistant Director: Anna Lorenz – Stage Manager: Lucy Van Dooren
Co-Lighting Designer – Liah Naidoo -Composer: Fergus Mashman
Voice and Performance Coach – Sarah Chalmers.
Presented by Off the Ledge Theatre.
Courtyard Studio – Canberra Theatre Centre 16th - 19th July 2026.
Performance on 16th July reviewed by BILL STEPHENS
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| Winsome Ogilvie as Millie in "Kerosene" |
Director, Lachlan Houen certainly set himself and his actor, Winsome Ogilvie, a challenge with his production of Melbourne playwright, Benjamin Nichol’s 2021 monodrama, “Kerosene”.
Raw and confronting, the play is narrated by Millie (Winsome Ogilvie) who describes the events leading to a catastrophic event which she has initiated.
Millie is a tough, streetwise young woman seeking love and acceptance. However, she encounters rejection at every turn, except from her elderly grandfather, and her best friend, Annie.
Millie’s friendship with Annie becomes her emotional anchor, but when Annie becomes involved in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, Millie’s inability to cope with the situation becomes the central focus of the play.
Essentially an examination of what drives people to commit acts of violence, “Kerosene” is presented on a bare stage without props, costumes, or other actors. The challenge for both director and actor is to maintain audience interest for the duration of the play.
Houen and Ogilvie attack this challenge head on.
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| Winsome Ogilvie as Millie in "Kerosene" |
Perfectly cast as the disaffected protagonist Millie, Ogilvie’s understanding of the character is clearly projected and the clarity of her diction admirable. Her impressive performance is brave and compelling, never flinching, despite confronting dialogue.
It may have been even more affecting had she been able to bring more light and shade to her performance which was pitched at such an intense level throughout as to leave her nowhere to go as the play reached its climax.
Similarly, Houen’s direction, though thoughtful and inventive in exploring opportunities to have his actor prowl the stage rather than risk the production becoming too static, missed opportunities to bring out more of the play’s subtext, such as the significance of the opal gifted to Millie by her grandfather. It would also have benefited from more dramatic lighting that didn’t reveal so much of the bare stage.
Nevertheless, this is a production that warrants attention as an admirable initiative by Off the Ledge Theatre to provide Canberra audiences with the opportunity to experience the work of an impressive emerging Australian playwright in Benjamin Nichol.
Photos by Andrew Sikorski
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW
