REVIEW BY BRONTE LEMAIRE
EDITED BY EMMA PARFITT
When I enter the theatre they’re already there.
One’s facing away on a stool, slow and lethargic. Another sits at the back on a concrete block, biting her nails. The third can’t be still, ramming into the wall again and again as if this time it will finally budge.
If you’ve been on public transport you’ve met them. Maybe on a tram–they provide this example themselves–swearing, possibly drinking, yelling random sentences that spit anger towards the other passengers or going on a long tangent about someone who did something and pissed them right off. You’ve met them before, but not like this.
We’re thrown into the deep end of Sam (Cosima Gilbert), Billy (Michaela Lattanzio) and Bobby (Alex Fimeri). These are three powerhouse performances that will made me laugh and flinch in the span of a few seconds. They’re pathetic, they’re angry, and they’re full of energy.
Sophia Murphy’s direction is tight and unforgiving, giving me the impression these three have known each other for a lifetime. Their lines overlap and interrupt in a steady rhythm, not giving me a second to breathe unless it’s designed to pull the rug out from underneath me. The use of contrast is dizzying. I can’t trust what will happen next, how one of them will react, or just how much my sympathy will be stretched to breaking point.
Sam is the easiest on the nerves. She’s dumb, she’s silly, always a second late to the joke and the last to clock the tension in the room. Gilbert does fantastically in giving nuance to this ditsy and nervous character, lowest in the pecking order but firm and unforgiving all the same. With her weakness at the forefront, it becomes scary as soon as the switch flips and you’re scared of what lengths she’ll go to and what lines she’ll cross to prove a point.
Leading the trio, Lattanzio drives the conversation. Deciding who to pick on, who is right, who is wrong. Who is tough, who is in need of a beating. Lattanzio toes the tricky line between mediator and dictator, giving us a Bobby who won’t take shit from anyone but is clearly hurting in a way she purposefully won’t let herself investigate. Lattanzio achieves the difficult position of giving us just enough to begin to see something shining through before being shut away again. She’s adamant she doesn’t cry and I don’t believe her, but I certainly wouldn’t fight her on it.
Finally Fimeri’s performance as Bobby is unnerving. She’s ready to explode and I can never quite tell when or even why. Fimeri dominates the performance with sound, throwing the lone metal stool, slamming on walls, their voice jumping to a yell within a syllable. Her giggles punctuate every morsel of tension, giving us no reprieve. But it is in this being of spiky energy that her unexpected stillness hits the hardest. When Bobby pleads to the audience, stripped literally and figuratively with wide eyes and shaking hands, my heart couldn’t help but crumple.
The costuming by Georgia Campbell and Elsie Craigie is a fantastic demonstration in simplicity and subtlety. They’re messy but cohesive, each piece inductive of the person wearing it, I can guess their dynamics and personalities before they say a word. Of course Sam is wearing a skirt that keeps riding up and a top strap that will continue to sit on her bicep instead of her shoulder, she’s oblivious to everything else. Billy is pragmatic, wearing what’s comfortable, what’s easy, what will keep her warm. She’s not gonna fuss. Bobby’s monologue about the disgusting nature of her body is highlighted through the fact her costuming is the most masculine of the three, opting for a tank top rather than anything that would highlight the existence of the very breasts she hates. When she is mockingly asked whether she considers herself a man, I already know the answer.
I was curious as to why Barkly had chosen SHIT as previous productions of the play, notably at Melbourne Theatre Company, had visibly older actors playing the characters. Most seemed to be in their 30s, 40s, 50s, performing the trio as women much later in their life. So as I walked into the Motley Bauhaus I was curious about how they were going to spin this with such a young cast. There were parts of the script that would have indeed made slightly more sense coming out of an older woman, many of which fell on Lattanzio’s shoulders as Billy’s lines gesture to someone with established social power from experience rather than the guesswork of a younger frustrated person, though Lattanzio does well to overcome this gap by leaning into her unsureness.
However, their youth brought a lens to the play I hadn’t anticipated. They are no longer “forsaken” because it’s too late for them, they are forsaken because they’ve decided that they are. No one has let them think otherwise, and they certainly won’t let each other pretend things could change either. They antagonise Sam for the crime of wanting, they dismantle Bobby to the point of tears for wanting something outside of this feminine body she’s been trapped in. I just end up watching the disassembling of broken women who stubbornly cling to their own destruction because they’re not allowed to hope for anything else.
This show is a living firecracker. I was amazed it could be contained to an hour in a small room, the walls suffocating the audience and characters alike, creating no unmeasured pause or break. It is a real travesty to me that the show is only for this week. I genuinely don’t know many shows that have moved me anywhere near the level this one did.
Next time I meet one of these characters on a tram on the way to class, this show will play in the back of my head. I’ll wonder if they’re more like Sam or Bobby or Billy. Or maybe someone else entirely. But I’ll wonder when was the last time they cried?
SHIT played at the Motley Bauhaus April 30th – May 3rd 2025.
BRONTE LEMAIRE (any pronouns) is a writer and theatre maker who loves witnessing what emerging artists can achieve. Bronte loves analysing and picking apart what makes art work and function (or not!) in order to learn and steal some inspiration for herself.
The Dialog is supported by Union House Theatre.
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