By Nick Pilgrim
Long established as one of Melbourne’s leading independent companies, Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre is situated in the city’s inner south-east. Known for showcasing a mixture of celebrated classics and new local work, the company’s 2025 season includes:
- Honour(By Joanna Murray Smith / Directed by Sam Strong)
- The Comeuppance (By Branden Jacob – Jenkins / Directed by Gary Abrahams)
- Super(By Emilie Collyer / Directed by Emma Valente)
- Job(By Max Friedlich / Nadia Tass)
Penned by Keziah Warner, What’s Yours is very much in line with the organisation’s unique brand. Buttons will be pushed and long-standing relationships tested to the limit. Meaning, the play is topical, controversial, raw and immersive all at once.
Thanks to the venue’s stepped seating plan, audiences are placed at one with the linear narrative unfolding on stage. Direction by Isabella Vadiveloo (with assistance by Roisin Wallace Nash) takes full advantage of this layout, drawing viewers full force into the action.
Think Betrayal (by Harold Pinter), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe (by Edward Albee), or Boxing Day BBQ (By Sam O’Sullivan), and you’ll soon get the idea.
This set up reminds me of a play I saw the previous weekend at the Meat Market Craft Space in North Melbourne. There, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was retooled with raked chairs on either side of an exposed set. Audience members were witness to deep emotion, a family on the verge of ruin, and gut-wrenching intimacy mere metres away.
Told in short bursts or extended episodes, What’s Yours is a multi-dimensional three – hander detailing the checkered history of Simon (Kevin Hofbauer), Lia (Carissa Lee) and Jo (Christina O’Neill).
The decision (or not) to have a child is the core of this ninety-minute story. Biology and ethics aside, the threesome work through and relive some painful memories. Thanks to a series of revelations, we discover what led them to this moment, and the prime cause of their friendship imploding in the first place.
Played out in various inner spaces, the trio share a long and messy history together. People who at first glance seem to have it all, but in reality, are barely holding it together, make us care for and identify with these flawed individuals. They are our friends, family, or colleagues.
Where characterisation is established and developed through dialogue, Warner has a finely tuned ear for conversation. Giving the illusion What’s Yours is neither forced nor scripted, pacing is also critical to the show’s success.
The actors formulate their thoughts as they speak. Trying to maintain the status quo as their motives betray them, they stumble and reach for the right words. With secrets spilled and indiscretions confessed, the awkward foot-in-mouth dynamic shared between the trio is the show’s biggest and strongest selling point.
The deliberate use of body language adds further fuel to this tension. Scenes are blocked in trios, pairs, or solo. Thanks to a translucent hanging curtain shifted by the actors between blackouts, characters not partaking in the action observe, judge, hover or disconnect nearby like ghosts.
Drawing on an impressive body of work, O’Neill, Hofbauer and Lee bring a shared truth to What’s Yours. Witness to their most intimate or vulnerable moments, I felt very much like I was eavesdropping on this complex situationship. Packed with anecdotal content, Warner presents a tale determined, often fearless in its choices.
Cinematic in its telling, What’s Yours becomes an exercise where no detail is left to chance. Very much like an independent movie reliant on frank conversation to propel the story, at times I felt like I was watching a film by Jane Campion (Two Friends – 1986), Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet – 1990), Rodrigo Garcia (Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her – 2000) or Nicole Holofcener (You Hurt My Feelings – 2023) brought to life.
Sleek Set and Costume Design (by Bianca Pardo), Lighting Design (by Rachel Lee), Composition/Sound Design (by Grace Ferguson & Ethan Hunter) are unobtrusive and minimalist. Small props added or subtracted from scene to scene indicate subtle shifts in time. Meanwhile, the multi-functional space awash with muted tones allows for the actors to stay present or completely front and centre.
Thanks to strong technical support from Charlie D (Production & Technical Manager), Jessica Smart (Stage Manager) and Ella Thompson (Assistant Stage Manager). What’s Yours is very much on point with our current cultural landscape. Speaking afterwards with a critic reviewing for another site, they felt the show was written for a specific audience in mind. That being said, while females may be the primary demographic for this journey, What’s Yours presents a multi-faceted drama impacting women and men with equal measure.
What’s Yours continues its strictly limited run until Sunday August 24.
Image: Cameron Grant, Parenthesy
