Girl Asleep

Girl Asleep was performed by 6 of the Third Year WAAPA Acting cohort and designed, built, and crewed by WAAPA Production and Design Students It played for a very short season in WAAPA’s intimate Enright Studio, in conjunction with sibling production Beautiful Burnout.

Set in the 1970s, this Australian surrealist drama has a strong fantasy element, asking for suspension of disbelief but beautifully played by this small cast, all of whom - except for Mia Fitzgerald who plays central character Greta - playing multiple roles, A credit to director Tasnim Hossain and Movement Director Shane Anthony for simply creating tangible stage magic.

Mia Fitzgerald’s Gemma is believably 15, awkward and unsure of herself. Moving to her new school she meets the even more awkward (and very possibly autistic) Elliot, expertly portrayed by Thomas Biti. 

Mia’s family are loveable but strange, portrayed in wonderfully quirky performances. Alexandra Henderson is a delight as angry older sister Genevieve, Sophie Hanley is the ultimate 70s mum, while Angelo Torres reminded me of every male teacher I had in the 70s, as Dad Conrad. 

Denise Mackel completes the cast, playing a plethora of characters with panache, including a younger version of Greta.

Mei Lim has given us a warm and familiar set design that is destructed and reconstructed during they play - and by necessity is easy to strike and set multiple times during the run. Ruby Trevor-Mills’ costumes transport us back to the seventies, and also includes fantastical elements such as the gorgeous Firebird performed so well by Alexandra Henderson. The trio of Lighting Designers, Brianna Stanton, Jakob Dorst and Matt Roberts, help the show to move through multiple locales as well as creating the nightmare elements later in the work.

At the matinee performance I attended, this was far less well attended than twin production Beautiful Burnout - a shame for patrons who missed out on seeing this magical, well-acted production, as good (if not better) than its stable-mate. A top-notch show.

Kimberley Shaw

Photographer: Stephen Heath