All Boys

In the last three months Sydney audiences have had the chance to see two plays that disclose the “hidden world" of exclusive private boys’ schools. Trophy Boys by Emmanuella Muttana directed by Marni Mount played at the Seymour Centre in June and July. All Boys by Xavier Hazard directed by Mehhma Malhi will close at KXT On Broadway this weekend.

Both plays are stinging exposés of a closed, elitist world where young boys are educated in a system that encourages classism, exclusivity, entitlement, misogyny, racism, nepotism, homophobia … and absolution. Many of those young men move on to university colleges where that behaviour continues, even, it seems, is sanctioned – as exposed in Josephine Gazard’s gut wrenching account of rape, and shame, and the determination to be believed in her play That’s What She Said (KXT May 2023 directed by Suzanne Millar).

After seeing That’s What She Said, I wrote “There is no theatre more important than that which exposes wrong and inspires reaction.”

All three of these plays do so in a way that hits hard and leaves lasting social bruises. They are written by young playwrights with consciences who brave societal precepts in favour of truth. They cleverly turn that truth into theatre that entertains even as it exposes.

Xavier Hazard pulls no punches in All Boys. Rather, as he takes his characters through 6 years at ‘Saints’, the mythical private school he creates. He describes their initiation into an entitled environment that encourages, disparages, dissuades and degrades as it carefully and pervasively perpetuates a sense of privilege and power that will, as director Mehhma Malhi, writes “always protect these young men without care for others”.

“We already know that the vast majority of perpetrators of violence -
physical, sexual, domestic - are men. What Xavier’s play does, however,
is investigate why by dissecting one of the main environments where
boys learn to be those men.” - Harry Stacey who plays the character Hugh

Harry Stacey is one of the eleven talented young actors who take Hazard’s characters through six years of brutal initiations, ridicule, homophobia, condescension and censure that by the time they reach year twelve somehow has instilled a sense of male privilege that will carry most of them into careers of authority and power.

There is an energy in this production spurred not just by robust youth and aptitude of the cast, but by belief and conviction – and the collected perceptive passion of director Mehhma Malhi and her creative colleagues. In her notes in the program Malhi writes glowingly of the collaborative commitment of both her cast and creatives and their dedication to a play that “offers the scaffolding to open a dialogue about how we might change men’s behaviour”.

The play takes the form of many short scenes that introduce the boys and follow them through the different events of their schooling that show their weaknesses, their strengths and their vulnerabilities – and see them grow into young men most of whom will perpetuate a patriarchy that will govern and judge, control and dominate.

Both playwright and director find moments of humour that lighten and accentuate scenes that speak loudly at times, and threateningly at others. Scenes that are played out in the playground, or in study times, in pairs or in groups, on the sporting field or in moments of introspection rising from family secrets that have been devastatingly revealed … or while preparing a debate.

It is interesting that the closed “in camera” environment of planning a debate and the competitiveness of the intellects involved therein featured in both Hazard and Muttana’s plays. It is interesting too that all three plays inferred the power of family ties in having criminal charges absolved.

All Boys is another “call out” to a society that has accepted the rights of the privileged, and perpetuated the acceptance of violence and domination. But it’s not just calling out to men. Like Trophy Boys and That’s What She Said it’s calling out to society at large to recognise the need to acced and admit and act.

Carol Wimmer

Photography: Nicholas Warrand