Theatre Review: Sunshine Super Girl
The Theatre: Melbourne Theatre Company, Southbank Theatre
Until: 14 December
Stars: 4
The last play of the Melbourne Theatre Company 2022 turned out to be a cracker, capping off what has been an excellent season. And despite the hiccup of having the lead actress out with COVID, her understudy was fantastic (even with a book in her hand) - so no complaints here.
Sunshine Super Girl relates the story of Evonne Goolagong (Later Evonne Goolagong Cawley) an indigenous girl from the bush who turned out to be one of Australia's best tennis players.
There is so much to love about this production. The Sumner Theatre has been decked out to look and feel like a tennis court - this is the first great thing. Jay and I were seated courtside, on what is normally the stage. Jonella and Norty were on the other side in the normal seats. It made for a bit of an adventure (although the courtside seats were getting pretty hard by the end of the play even though the leg room was better).
The performances were great too. The five actors worked as a team, bringing tennis, and its identities to life. Some standouts for me were the impersonations of Margaret Court and John Newcombe - the first being apt, the second very funny.
The story was also both inspiring and heart-warming. Born to indigenous parents, Evonne worked her butt off to get to the top, overcoming insurmountable odds, poverty, racism and a lot of other things on the way.
The actress playing Evonne was great, even though she had stepped in for Ella Ferris, who was out with COVID. Book in hand, you really couldn't tell. The rest of the cast, Lincoln Elliot, Jax Compton, Katina Olsen and Kirk Page, ebbed and flowed into different characters and used a lot of highly choreographed physical theatre to bring the tennis circuit to life.
As somebody who doesn't give two hoots about tennis, I really enjoyed everything about this, from the staging, to the material to the performances. It was a very entertaining 90 minutes (even if my bum was a bit sore by the end of it.)
This is running for another ten days.
It's worth checking out.
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