REVIEWED BY KIERA EDELSTEIN
EDITED BY RACHEL THORNBY
There is something appealing about the aesthetic of cleats, pumping athletic music and female-led stories at the moment and, with its epic display of ball skills, blood red uniforms and a team of girls with enough grit to win their soccer tournament, Theatre Works’s The Wolves is no exception.
For examples think of: Melbourne Theatre Company’s ‘Shoelace Chaser’; ‘Good For a Girl’ written by Becky Deeks, which is making the rounds in the UK; even ‘Yellowjackets’ from Paramount Plus. Maybe, after years and years of men’s stories in everything from ‘The Blindside’ to ‘Ted Lasso’ it’s exciting to see women front and centre killing it on the pitch and in the dirt (or the astroturf to be more accurate).
No doubt The Wolves marketing campaign captured the crowd still pumped from the 2024 reign of the Matildas. However, while I was stuffed into tightly packed L-shaped stalls in St Kilda, assembled like a rioting crowd, I had a sense that this show would go deeper then adrenaline.
The Wolves is a 90-minute, one act play that straps you in and doesn’t let you go until the final whistle. The scenes, which run more like schoolground recess deliberations, depict successive weeks of pre-game warmups for a high-achieving indoor soccer team. Each week brings with it a new set of problems for the girls to untangle, ranging from personal to political, sex to school, social to parasocial. Emphasising the tumultuous and unpredictable nature of high school friendship groups, every time jump forward also presents a readjusted set of social structures, appropriate conversation topics and in-jokes. Indeed, the show surges conversations at such a rollicking pace that the opening scene begins with concurrent discussions on tampons and the Khmer Rouge and only powers on from there. As the rhythm of a perfectly executed routine of lunges, burpees, side steps and turns is seamlessly repeated week on week, it remains true that many things stay the same, suggesting that the regular company of a team can be enough to stabilise everything else.
It is in this regularity that director Belle Hansen’s staging, with help from assistant director Isabella Martin, works its magic. Despite the unconventional staging set up and space restrictions, the direction team managed to innovate and excess of creative formations. Whether the actors were dotted around in a stretch circle or leaning on each other for leg swings, shaping consistently gave insight into social ties, spotlighted certain voices, and offered intimate perspectives. In combination with the simplicity of Tom Vulcan’s enclosing set, it was no time before I was completely sucked into the world. In one seamless sequence, Hansen had the nine girls running in and out the space so smoothly I got a stich from the sense of skipping alongside them.
Settling into The Wolves was easier than sitting down to watch an episode of Friends. Everything about the performance felt closer than comfort; it felt like memory. A colossal commendation for this effort goes to the enrapturing ensemble. Each player’s background – their likes, their dislikes, their position in the social web – was thoughtfully examined, carefully embodied and collectively understood, such that everyone had a distinct sense not only of themselves, but of each other.
The effect was like watching back on this strangely familiar expression of my past with older eyes and a special the capacity to see the whole, than a warped single position.
With her darting eyes, quick check-ins for the approval of her idol/best-friend, Shanu Sobti as #14 conjured such a deep sense of sympathy for those desperately longing to feel accepted. Erin Perrey’s #15 – the team captain and emotional rock – stiff smile and kind eyes highlighted to me the quiet strength it takes to hold a group together, and the impossibility to do it gently when all you’ve been exposed to is force.
In a completely heartbreaking moment, having made an insensitive joke concerning her friend’s sick mom, Kristie Kriaris-Tsotras as #13 sent the audience right back to every time we’ve said the wrong thing while trying our hardest to get it right. As the underestimated outsider #46, Desiree Katakis’s yoghurt rap made me remember, like an old bruise, the sensation of being on the outskirts of the cool club – at the same time rethink if and when I’ve been the one leaving others out. In every performance, the lessons gleaned by the girls in these small moments coalesced into something much bigger – a press for introspection, individual as well as societally, about how we exist as, educate, socialise and care for young women.
The show also deftly captured how young people grapple with responsibility and pain in our complex political climate. Alana Lopera’s depiction of #2 grappling with the inequity of immigration while her friends encourage her to bulk up with more protein felt like the most apt reflection of the seesaw of society today. A heartrendingly nuanced performance from Ellie Nunan as #00 was another highlight, as she conveyed an entire universe of internal turmoil with barely any lines. Nunan’s performance brought me to tears in the scene where her anxiety attack turns into an attempt push even harder in her training. In this sense, The Wolves felt much like as call to arms as a call to link arms, emphasising the importance of someone to call you out when you’ve done wrong and someone to guide you when you’re hurting.
More than anything else, this show was funny. Laugh-out-embarrassingly-loud-in-a-small-space funny. This was certainly a team effort, but Marlena Tompson (#8) and Eleanor Golding (#11) absolutely stole the show in this respect. The accuracy of each facial expression, giggle and one liner had me almost convinced the pair were possessed by my high school friends. Lines like: “guys I totally thought she was Mexican” and “she doesn’t shave” with the response “like anywhere?” and “crippling S.A.D” had me laughing so much I got looks from other audience members. This humour was crucial in breathing life into the show, and it meant the silence could hang heavy when it finally came.
And came it did. Deep into the play, the comfortable rhythm of the regular warm up routine is ripped away, as we find out we’ve skipped two weeks forward and something tragic has happened. The relatable, desperate to be cool, just had a massive fight with her best friend, #14 has been hit by a car on an early morning run and passed away.
The gap left from the loss of this character was impeccably performed as a physical presence on the stage – it was as if an essential limb of the collective being had been ripped away and the team had to recentre how to walk. Particularly Bek Schilling’s (#7) performance in this scene was truly harrowing, as we watched an entirely confident, knows everything and is bothered by nothing façade fall away – even if I was a bit confused as to why her ACL injury (an earlier drama in the script and partial cause of the best friends falling out) warranted a moon boot.
Truthfully, I felt the weight of this death plotline was unnecessary to the emotional core of the show though this is a comment more on Sarah Delappe’s script than any of the effort of the Theatre Works team. Emily Joy as ‘Soccer Mom’ gave it her all in a climatic monologue, which pictured the unravelling of a grieving mother extremely effectively. Even so, I struggled not to feel like I was being heavy-handedly pulled to form some emotional response to a show that had already got me to respond.
Ultimately, I still came away deeply moved by the urgency of the team’s connection and the value of having a group to lean on when it matters most. Theatre Works’s The Wolves is a play to go see with your sister, high school friends, mom or even by yourself when you need to feel part of something. If anything rang through in the girl’s final huddle it was: We. Are. The. Wolves. We are all the Wolves.
The Wolves was presented at Theatre Works 10 – 20 June 2026.
KIERA EDELSTEIN is a First Year Bachelor of Arts student who loves all things reading, writing and storytelling. She doesn’t know what her major is yet but has decided in the meantime to take part in as many parts of the student-theatre that she can.
RACHEL THORNBY is a Media and Communications honours student writing her thesis on social media reviewing platforms. As a lover of reading and writing she is a sub-editor for both The Dialog and Farrago.
The Dialog is supported by Union House Theatre
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