Friendship is at the heart of Big Girls Don’t Cry, a gorgeous slice-of-life drama that takes us back to 1960s Redfern, where three young Aboriginal women are gearing up for the biggest night of the year – the Deb Ball.
Playwright and star Dalara Williams balances the bitter and the sweet in this engaging rom-com-inflected drama. As Cheryl (Williams), Queenie (Megan Wilding) and Lulu (Stephanie Somerville) navigate life’s ups and downs, audiences at Belvoir St Theatre are gifted with an all-too-rarely seen window into Blak sisterhood. While for these women, injustice may tarnish everything from going to work to walking the streets, where racist cops roam – nothing in the world can shake the sacred joy of a trio of girlfriends gathered in a bedroom and getting ready for a night out, tearing through outfit options and gossiping. Not even Cheryl’s concern for her beloved Michael (Mathew Cooper), who’s serving in Vietnam. However, could the distracting pull of the charming Milo (Nic English) be strong enough to tear her away from re-reading the same old love letters?
Inspired by her grandmothers’ stories and snapshots of history found in family photo albums, Williams has crafted an uplifting and entertaining drama that also doesn’t shy away from the violence and injustices of our all-too-recent history, and prompts us to question how much has really changed. Big Girls is not necessarily ground-breaking in its form, and it needn’t be, especially with a cast this good.
Dalara Williams balances the bitter and the sweet in this engaging rom-com-inflected drama... an all-too-rarely seen window into Blak sisterhood
In particular, Megan Wilding cements her place as one of the most charismatic presences on the Sydney stage as Queenie – she can convey more with a twitch of her eyebrow or a tilt of her head than any spoken dialogue could ever hope to. In a moment of tremendous vulnerability, she delivers a tearful confession about her fear of letting in the one man who could love her fully – a speech that will strike a chord with any misfit woman who has been told that she is both “too much” and “not enough”. Queenie's humour, her outgoingness, and her love of an attention-grabbing dress are all part of the armour she wears to survive a cruel world. But this script also doesn't do her the disservice of stripping away her unique qualities in order to allow her to grow.
Meanwhile, Guy Simon deserves an honourable mention for his performance as Cheryl’s outspoken brother Ernie, it's an interesting contrast to his recent turn on the Belvoir stage as the star of Jacky, and his evolving dynamic with Wilding’s Queenie is particularly delightful. Heartbreak High star Bryn Chapman Parish also holds his own as a detestable police officer; and Nic English gives us an "other man" that we can root for in Milo, also convincingly holding space for the precarious line he walks as a second-generation Italian immigrant in 1960s Australia.
The production does crave a little more polish. For example, the revolving stage makes for some interesting movement and smooth transitions, but at times, it can be difficult to hear the actors’ voices over the rumble of its operation. Director Ian Michael is certainly not taking as many big swings as he did with his recent reimagining of Picnic at Hanging Rock for STC, and perhaps that’s a good thing – getting too experimental here would only distract from the deeply human drama of it all.
However, for a debut presentation, Big Girls is a deeply charming and hopeful story that harnesses the great empathy machine of theatre to achieve one of the greatest things it can do – which is to understand ourselves, others, and our society more deeply. It is an accessible entry point to learn more about the Indigenous rights movement in this country, the empowering legacy of Aboriginal debutante balls, and also, it’s bloody good drama that we need to see more of.
Big Girls Don’t Cry is playing at Belvoir St Theatre, Surry Hills, until April 27, 2025. Get tickets over here.
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