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[title]On any given night at Belvoir St Theatre, you can see three different generations of theatre-goers together at the same time – and all of them are looking to get something different out of the experience.
Based out of an old factory in Surry Hills since 1984, this little theatre company that could has persevered through Covid-induced disruptions and everything else that has been thrown at the arts community over the past few decades to land at the forefront of Australian storytelling. And yet, it still belongs as much to its local neighbourhood and the niche communities it draws in as it does to the world stage.
In 2024, Belvoir is continuing what it does best: putting on inventive theatre that restores faith in humanity. There are some intriguing new plays from promising up-and-coming playwrights catching a break with Belvoir in the new year – but, in the meantime, it’s the revival productions that will set hearts aflutter.
Photograph: Supplied/Belvoir
The show that is sure to get audiences really excited is the return of S Shakthidharan’s epic play Counting and Cracking, which will be staged in the cavernous industrial-chic surrounds of Carriageworks in collaboration with Co-Curious.
With a story that spans four generations and taps into the Sri Lankan diaspora, Belvoir has been keen to bring Counting and Cracking back home since it premiered at Sydney Festival in 2019. In the meantime, it has toured to Edinburgh and to Birmingham. In late 2022 its companion piece, The Jungle and the Sea, was another fine example of S Shakthidharan and Eamonn Flack “mastering the trauma sandwich”.
Speaking about the year ahead for Belvoir, artistic director Eamon Flack seems especially excited about Counting and Cracking. His pride and astonishment at what they’ve already achieved with this play is palpable: “I was quite relieved that we were gonna do it the first time. Everyone else [other producers] sort of stayed away. I mean, to be fair, it sort of looked undoable.”
Flack continued: “There are 19 performers in this show and 16 of them are still the original cast members. People love this show, they just give up their lives for it. People like Prakash Balawadi, he’s a star. He gets recognised on the street in Birmingham, in Edinburgh, and in Sydney.”
If Counting and Cracking doesn’t already sound like a must-see for your theatrical calendar in 2024, just wait until you get a load of what else Belvoir has up their unconventional sleeves.
Belvoir St Theatre’s 2024 Season
Tiddas
Jan 12-28
By Anita Heiss
Directed by Nadine McDonald-Dowd
When Belvoir’s associate artist Kodie Bedford, a First Nations woman, saw the premiere of Tiddas at Brisbane Festival in 2022, she was immediately driven to bring it to Sydney, telling the Belvoir team: “I never see middle-class blak women on stage.”
Anita Heiss’s own adaptation of her much-loved novel, Tiddas, centres around five women, best friends for decades, who meet once a month to talk about books, lovers, and the jagged bits of life in between. Dissecting each other’s lives seems the most natural thing in the world, and honesty, no matter how brutal, is something they treasure. Best friends tell each other everything, don’t they? But each woman carries a complex secret and one weekend, without warning, everything comes unstuck. This show is presented as part of Sydney Festival’s Blak Out program, which spotlights work from Indigenous creators.
Tiny Beautiful Things
Feb 1-Mar 3
Based on the book by Cheryl Strayed
Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos
Directed by Lee Lewis
American writer Cheryl Strayed came into renown as an online advice columnist called Sugar, and even more so when she revealed her true identity: an ex-heroin user and mother trying to make ends meet. Strayed (also the author of Wild) turned the column into a bestselling novel, and as it happens, that book was picked up by Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame and turned into a play for New York’s great Public Theatre. The result is as revealing and life-affirming as the real stories it tells. The Belvoir team has had their eyes on this one for a good, long time, and in 2024 the stars align.
Photograph: Supplied/Belvoir | Holding The Man
Holding the Man
Mar 19-Apr 14
Based on the book by Timothy Conigrave
Adapted for the stage by Tommy Murphy
Directed by Eamon Flack
A time capsule of what it was like to be gay in Australia in the ’70s and ’80s and the devastation of the HIV pandemic, Tim Conigrave’s memoir of living and dying changed the nation. Tommy Murphy’s 2006 adaptation became an instant hit, as well as the 2015 film adaption, and now, almost 30 years on from when the story was first published, Belvoir is reviving this Australian classic with a brand new production with a cast of six, including Danny Ball, Tom Conroy and Guy Simon.
“The thing that's striking about the play is that Tommy Murphy was 24 or 25 when he wrote it, and it's such an assured piece of writing…every line does more than one thing. There's no faff in there, and yet it's full of playfulness,” said Flack. “The theatrical game of the piece is a lot more joyful than the reality of the film, where everything is presented literally. This story is actually full of joy, not just about someone dying.”
Lose to Win
Apr 25-May 19
By Mandela Mathia
Directed by Jess Arthur
From South Sudan to Egypt to Belvoir St, this is the extraordinary journey of Mandela Mathia. Fleeing his war-torn home as a child, Mandela spent many years journeying, searching, and eventually finding his way to the Belvoir stage. This is a “very big, gorgeous, heartwarming show” straight from the man who lived it. A celebration of the South Sudanese community, of resilience, and the power of imagination, Lose to Win is an astonishing modern Australian story.
Nayika (A Dancing Girl)
Apr 30-May 19
Co-created and co-directed by Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell
A chance remark takes a woman back to her teenage years, living by the ocean in Chennai, perfecting her movements for her debut performance, the Arangetram. She met a young man, and in the universe of gods, dance and love takes an unexpected turn. This solo performance comes from Helpmann Award-winning performer Vaishnavi Suryaprakash (break-out star of Counting and Cracking) and combines storytelling, live music and Bharathnatyam dance. Nayika is a story of survival, of dance as resistance, and it invites us to imagine a new type of heroine.
Fun fact: Nayika and Lose to Win will actually share the same set, a move from Belvoir to enable both shows to have a longer run and allow each of them time to find their audience.
Never Closer
May 25-Jun 16
By Grace Chapple
Directed by Hannah Goodwin
Set around a kitchen table in a border town in Northern Ireland on Christmas Eve against the backdrop of The Troubles, this debut play is an unforgettable drama of home, friends, youth, the decision to leave or stay, and the possibility of forgiveness.
“Grace Chapel is a writer who you might not have met yet, but I think you'll get to know her very well in the next little while. She's the real deal,” says Flack. Never Closer premiered in Belvoir’s downstairs theatre as part of the 25A artist development program, and Flack was so taken with it that he saw it twice, and now it’s graduating to the mainstage with the original team.
Photograph: Supplied/Belvoir | Well-Behaved Women
Counting and Cracking
Jun 28-Jul 21
Writer & Associate Director S Shakthidharan
Director & Associate Writer Eamon Flack
Belvoir’s break-out hit from 2019 is returning to Sydney for an epic production at Carriageworks after being taken across the globe for Edinburgh Festival and the Commonwealth Games. A play about the big stuff and the little stuff, Counting and Cracking follows the journey of one Sri Lankan-Australian family over four generations. After S Shakthidharan’s much-anticipated follow-up piece The Jungle and the Sea impressed in late 2022, this is an excellent time to get acquainted with (or revisit) this modern Australian epic and find out what made critics rave.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Aug 17-Sep 22
Based on the book by Mark Haddon
Adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens
Directed by Hannah Goodwin
Christopher, 15 years old, has an extraordinary brain. He’s exceptional at maths and observes things nobody else sees. Everyday life is a little trickier – he has never ventured alone beyond the end of the street, he detests being touched, and he’s wary of strangers.
Now he’s in the front yard, it’s seven minutes to midnight, and Mrs Shears’ dog is lying dead at his feet, a garden fork in the neck. He’s going to be the chief suspect, isn’t he? So who can solve the mystery? Nobody but Christopher and his big brain
British writer Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel was an unprecedented insight into the autistic brain, and Simon Stephens’ 2012 Oliver Award-winning theatrical adaptation made its magic even more palpable.
“I think we're in the middle of a shift to do with how we understand neurodiversity, and I think we're living in a world now where there is much bigger recognition,” Flack explained. “And this is one of the great and true works around the question, and is much loved and respected. So I feel like it’s a good time to revive it.”
Well-Behaved Women
Sep 28-Nov 3
Song Cycle by Carmel Dean
Directed by Blazey Best
How would Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, Virginia Woolf, Frida Kahlo, Billie Jean King, Cathy Freeman and Malala Yousafzai sing the song of their lives? In this glittery new musical feast, legendary women from history are brought to life and reimagined through powerful and often hilarious songs, describing and celebrating their breakthrough moments in history.
Four living legends – Stefanie Caccamo, Zahra Newman, Elenoa Rokobaro and Ursula Yovich – are coming together on the Belvoir stage for this empowering showcase. This crew first got together for a scratch showing at Hayes Theatre Company last year, and apparently they had such a good time with it that these in-demand performers leapt at the chance to do a proper season. Hailing from Perth, New-York based composer and lyricist Carmel Dean has had this show percolating for some time, and we’re told that there’s an album in the works with a whole lot of Broadway stars involved. So, this is your chance to say you were one of the first people to see this show.
Photograph: Supplied/Belvoir | August: Osage County
August: Osage County
Nov 9-Dec 15
By Tracy Letts
Directed by Eamon Flack
Charismatic poet-patriarch Beverly Weston has gone – where, nobody knows. His wife Violet careens downhill into opiate addiction, and the three daughters dutifully return to their childhood home – spouses, children and unfinished business trailing behind. The family is (almost) together for the first time in years. Of course, old wounds have to be dressed, and old scores have to be settled.
The inspiration behind the film of the same name fronted by Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, Belvoir is bringing this great American tragi-comedy back to the local mainstage in a new production. The all-star cast includes the likes of Bert LaBonté, Pamela Rabe and Helen Thomson, with more to be announced. This play is traditionally staged as a full three-storey house, which is a logistical impossibility in Belvoir’s cosier theatre space, but the team has proven they can make improbable magic happen in their former tomato-sauce-factory home.
Next year is an election year for the USA, and as Flack explains, this makes it a poignant time to revive this show: “I think the offer that Tracy Letts made in the first place…is that this family is kind of meant to be a picture of a nation that is destroying itself. But also, he's a clever enough writer not just to be a total cynic.”
“It's also a play that is really full of people doing the absolute damnedest to try and stay in loving contact with each other. I know that sounds perverse for anyone who knows the play, but that is actually what is motoring. And I think that the struggle to love is everywhere at the moment.”
Subscriptions for Belvoir's 2024 season are on sale now. Find out more at belvoir.com.au.