A deep and heartbreaking story of life.
Girls & Boys, Sydney Theatre Company‘s second solo show of its 2026 season, offers a resonant exploration of humanity. Starring Justine Clarke and directed by Mitchell Butel, it is a thoughtful display of self-discovery, motherhood and loss.
In Girls & Boys, Justine Clarke plays an unnamed woman. Through a series of monologues to the audience and occasional moments of interaction with her ‘kids’ (who are not physically on stage but rather created through her use of the space), Clarke takes audiences through the woman’s adult life, from her responsibility-free years of travel and casual sex through to her career and marriage.
The show focuses on the marriage and the toll it takes on Clarke’s character, especially as the husband (again unseen) begins to lose control over his world.
Clarke’s performance is strong in its simplicity. She guides the audience deftly through the woman’s life, bringing humour to unexpected moments and serious raw emotion when needed, without overdoing things. Of particular note is the rhythm Clarke is able to create; as a result of her measured pacing, purposeful movement, and awareness of the script’s ebbs and flows (Dennis Kelly), the show moves fluidly through its narrative.
Clarke’s stagecraft is also laudable, endowing the theatre space well to help audiences perceive the other characters in the story. In keeping her performance simple, she brings out the sincerity in the writing, which makes the drama of the production impactful.
Butel’s direction follows suit. Production elements are bounded, with the stage mostly bare (Ailsa Paterson) and composition (Alan John) uncomplicated. This works to draw focus on Clarke’s performance of Kelly’s script.
Kelly’s script is particularly strong in the way it uses storytelling rather than conventional dramatic action. The audience experiences the woman’s marriage almost entirely through her recollections, which makes them the guide and the lens through which the show’s actions are interpreted. The woman’s observations about relationships, ambition, gender and family life initially feel spontaneous, but acquire a troubling significance. His script is also interested in the relationship between private violence and wider social ideas about masculinity, power and the structures that supposedly keep destructive impulses under control. As a result, rather than providing easy explanations, Kelly leaves the audience wrestling with uncomfortable questions about how well we really know the people closest to us.
Ultimately, Girls & Boys is a challenging but well performed production. It doesn’t offer comfortable answers, but it asks difficult questions about love, power, violence and the stories we tell ourselves about the people we think we know.
