28/11/2025
Review by arts editor Sarah McNeill
Carol
Black Swan State Theatre Co
State Theatre Centre
Closes December 14
Playwright Andrea Gibbs is quite simply masterful in combining pathos with humour.
Her festive play reminds us that the season is full of mixed emotions. There is the joy of families reuniting, the pleasure of preparing and eating a special meal, the fun of gift giving and receiving. And the grief and loss of a loved one, of not seeing family, or of heightened family dynamics and drama. Or ultimately, spending this time on the streets with no home, no food, no family, and living in fear.
At the heart of Andrea’s play is Carol, played with warmth, enormous heart and gentle humour by Sally-Anne Upton. Carol has always loved Christmas – because it’s also her birthday, but no one really remembers that - and her family has always relied on her to make the day special. But when she loses everything, she is still expected to be the one to make magic.
Carol – the play - is laugh-out-loud funny – thanks mostly to the brilliant Mark Storen as a cranky and irascible Santa. In his annual search for the naughty and nice, he’s struggling to find anyone nice anymore – except for warm-hearted Carol.
After almost a decade of low-key verbatim theatre, Mark has thrown himself into this hilarious and playful role, singing, yelling, dancing, interacting with the audience – and watching over Carol.
The play may be full of exuberance, but it also offers a gentle interrogation of some of the more problematic elements of women in their 60s being left homeless.
“I spoke with a bunch of women who’d lived this,” Andrea notes in the program. “Not one of them thought it would happen to them. The reasons were messy and overlapping: a death, rent hikes, bugger-all savings or Super, casual work drying up, a marriage breakdown, bad luck. Usually two or three of those things hit at once, and that was that.”
But through Sally-Anne’s Carol we witness a woman who discovers strength, courage and resilience.
Another in a long list of successes, director Adam Mitchell helms a snappy production, with the multi-talented Isaac Diamond who leaps from playing the drums to playing Carol’s spoilt son, and several other characters, along with Ruby Henaway and Bruce Denny also flying into quick costume changes and a series of well-defined roles.
They all fill the stage with quick-change personalities and infectious playfulness.
It all plays out on Bruce McKinven’s gloriously colourful, nostalgic set filled with swathes of curtains patterned like wrapping paper, tinsel, prettily lit with swathes of fairy lights by Lucy Birkinshaw, with a gorgeous old combi van taking centre stage.
Musical director Jackson Harper Griggs is on piano, pounding out Christmas songs and providing a delicate live backing track to the action.
The top-notch performances speak to an important subject with wit, warmth, and a deep well of hope.
Pictured:
Santa (Mark Storen) watches Carol (Sally-Anne Upton) prepare a traditional Christmas lunch for her son (Isaac Diamond).
Santa’s (Mark Storen) big guns: naughty or nice?
Great music provided by Jackson Harper Griggs and drummer Isaac Diamond.
Photos by Daniel J Grant.
