REVIEW: Fabulously Feminist Classic Australian Novel, MY BRILLIANT CAREER Is Given The Musical Theatre Treatment And It Is Brilliant.

Saturday 4th April 2026, 7:30pm, Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay (In Season review)

Miles Franklin’s best known work, MY BRILLIANT CAREER is given the musical theatre treatment for a modern age by Sheridan Harbridge (Book), Dean Bryant (Book and Lyrics) and Mathew Frank (Music) and the outcome is amazing.  Directed by Anne-Louise Sarks and led by Kala Gare as Sybylla Melvyn, this fiercely feminist work which premiered in Melbourne for Melbourne Theatre Company in 2024, is presented with heart and humour to convey a message that remains as relevant in the 21st century as it did when the novel was first published in 1901. 

Listed as a work of fiction, but perceived to be somewhat autobiographical, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, who published MY BRILLIANT CAREER as Miles Franklin, takes the audience into the world of the 15 year old Sybylla Melvyn (Kala Gare).  Stuck as the eldest daughter of a cattle farmer in the drought ravaged Possum Gully, Sybylla dreams of being somewhere she can be exposed to books, music and art and where she can write and be heard, but unfortunately for women in the late 19th century are destined to be wives and mothers, considered the property of a man.  She believes her luck has changed when she is sent to live with her wealthy grandmother, Grannie Bossier (Ana Mitsikas), and her Aunt Helen (Christina O’Neill) and Uncle Jay Jay (Drew Livingston) at Caddagat, where her family lived before her father made the disastrous decision to strike out on his own and away from his wife’s family connections.  Determined in her goal to have a career and weighed down by the repeated slights about her appearance, Sybylla rejects the suitors that offer themselves, even though she seems quite partial to neighbour and childhood friend Harry Beecham (Raj Labade), who also happens to be quite wealthy, and her dream of having her own career becomes an even more distant dream.

With Bryant and Frank’s score that leans into contemporary pop and rock music with nods to country and folk tones and Harbridge and Bryant’s script that draws on the novel’s style of having the ‘yarns’ told by Sybylla, the Marg Horwell’s (set and costume design) staging is dominated by the band on a dry grass clad stage.  The scenes are implied through Sybylla’s storytelling and minimal props though every ‘addition’ is presented with suitable drama and artistic vision creating simple yet powerful images.  Ensuring that the Sybylla is seen as ‘not your average girly girl’ from the start, Horwell has a the central character in an intriguing layering of clothes that show elements of late 19th century femininity with more masculine practicality.  The petticoat poking through the rolled up pants is a particularly playful look while allowing the costume to morph into more ‘respectable’ femininity when she’s sent off to Caddagat and Grannie’s watchful eyes. The financial status of the other characters is also conveyed through the costuming with the op-shop come dress up box attire of the M’Swat clan being particularly amusing. 

This work has a fabulous original score with clever lyrics and captivating music and allows a variety of characters to tell their story to show the depth and complexity of the era.  Gare has a fabulous rock sensibility, and her expression can be powerful or playful as the story requires while also delivering some heartbreaking moments.  Christina O’Neill, who doubles as Sybylla’s mother Lucy, Lucy’s sister Helen and Mrs M’Swat, really shines as Helen, the Aunt with a secret and Sybylla’s biggest cheerleader, particularly for Turn Away From The Mirror.  Melanie Bird doubles as Sybylla’s younger sister Gertie, Lizer M’Swat and the rich socialite seeking a husband, Blanche, and she eats up the Ball scene of Make A Success where Sybylla is both wildly jealous and intrigued.  Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward’s solo as Frank, the English snob on a gap year as a Jackaroo, is deliciously camp making it even more absurd to think that Sybylla would agree to his proposal.  As Harry, Sybylla’s only viable love interest, even though she claims that this isn’t a romance and hates sentimentality, Raj Labade’s Working My Way is beautiful and the his duet with Gare, A Little Bit More is playful and poignant. 

While women have more rights and opportunities than Sybylla did at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, there is still a way to go in terms of equal rights, opportunities and the expectations that are still put upon many for women.  Women are still underrepresented in leadership and key decision making roles in the public and private sector and many industries are still male dominated.  Many women are still subjected to the questions of when they’ll get married and have babies with many societies and women themselves valuing a woman’s worth based on these factors.  While Harbridge and Bryant have taken a few liberties with the story to provide a more powerful message that Sybylla wont marry because, even though Harry accepts she wants to write, it will come after the obligation of wife, home maker and mother, if she even survives that, the use of Franklins words, paired with new lines, makes this and even more captivating.  Woven with music and Amy Campbell’s diverse choreography that incorporates the band, many of which are also the character actors, this work is a perfect piece of theatre and proves that Australian creatives are making great theatre and hopefully this work will do a more National, even International, tour. 

Sydney Theatre Company - MY BRILLIANT CAREER

Photos: Pia Johnson

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