Housework, Sydney Theatre Company, Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 5 Sep-17 Oct

 

Image by Prudence Upton

"Housework" is a contemporary comedy drama set in and around the corridors of power in Canberra when a first-term member of parliament decides to start campaigning on her pet issue and comes face to face with some sticky moral conundrums into the bargain. While this originally premiered early last year, it feels somewhat older, with a lot of COVID material at the top of the play suggesting the vintage of its early drafts, and writer Emily Steel gets a bit too enthusiastic to get into the salacious scandal elements of the plot at the expense of what begins more like a more contemplative piece about how women get socialised in politics and what happens to naive good intentions, before becoming more interested in throwing shock twists at the audience.

But to start with the high points - designer Ailsa Paterson uses the iconic look of Parliament House's columns for a stylish institutional design together with a large revolving table to represent the various meeting rooms, corridors of power, restaurants and serviced apartments where the action takes place. Emily Taheney as the lead, adviser Anna, has a strong authority as someone who has very much been around the block and is only starting to become aware how much it may have cost her. Susie Yousef as the MP gives the role some frantic crash-through style, showing the raw passion that probably got her elected along with the inability to stop herself that will hold her back later. Indira Naidoo brings her undoubted authority to a late-in-the-play cameo role (and also serves to assist with a fair number of set changes). Meanwhile Lawrence Boxhall, Franca Lafosse and Johnny Nasser are in thinner roles that basically exist to service plot more than character, and serve them well enough to keep the pot boiling.

This isn't bad but I don't think it really delivers much more insight than any number of other political thrillers - given what the last decade of politics has given us to work with, this feels like nothing much we haven't seen before done better. It's given a glossy production by Shannon Rush but it feels like a lot of style and not very much substance.