In The Club

Cutting-edge new play In The Club by Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius delivers a controversial and topical expose of women demanding their right to be heard against male football stars.    

Bullet Heart Club director Kitan Petkovski and a multi-disciplinary team of creatives have pushed boundaries creating a cataclysmic piece of musical theatre including songs by Australian musician Jasper Jonze. Set in a nightclub where the star league football players are regulars, known as a place to pick up a quick fuck, the action evolves around three women and their revelatory monologues.

The show begins with Annie (Eva Seymour) the feisty, athletic fifteen-year-old who loves football, on and off the field. When she turned sixteen, got her period, and developed a bust, her goals for success grew into thwarted sexual passions for her once adored football hero (Ras Samuel).

Olivia (Brigid Gallacher) is your average girl next door, who is looking for a meaningful relationship and loves sex with the right guy. Innocent to the rules of dating ‘fame’, she’s wooed by a hunky footy player (Darcy Kent).

A powerful dramatization of an ugly sexual assault against Olivia takes centre stage; she addresses shock, fear and personal betrayal that is juxtaposed against the bromance/ bravado behaviour of the culprits who sit at the back of the stage chewing the fat, talking in repetitive expletives such as “she is shit”and “ugly piece of meat”. They assume their rights as footy stars, exempt from guilt, in the aftermath of their brutal rape. Cornelius has raised poignant questions and Petkovski has given his audience a challenging interpretation of real–life scenarios that we have seen time and time again played out in the media.

A football player (Damien Harrison) taunts Ruby (Michelle Perera), the regular groupie who fucks all the players; she doesn’t discriminate - she loves sex with these famed muscular hunks. The bimbo that can be taken for a ride and later dumped on the side of the road. There is no shame in that because she plays by their rules … or is there?

The entire cast give exceptional performances. The lighting design (Niklas Pajanti/ Tom Willis) is carefully orchestrated to raise tension and drama; the set (Bethany J Fellows) is minimal, with nightclub couch seating; the music is nightclub loud and vibrant, except for the intercut musical solo song and dance routines by Eva Seymour, choreographed by Mia Tuco.

A ground-breaking piece of theatre that tackles, head butts and kicks goals in its address against gross misogynistic behaviour by men in the professional sporting arena.

Flora Georgiou

Photographer: James Reiser