Directed by Patrick Kennedy for New Theatre
Playwright Topher Payne believes that the best way to engage with an audience is through comedy. “If you can make someone laugh, they listen. And they lean in, and they want to hear more. And once you have that level of engagement, then you can start layering in a message that you want them to take away”.
His very clever script for Perfect Arrangement, which opened last week at the New Theatre, Newtown, does exactly this. Set in 1950s America at the height of Macarthyism, this play is about the “lavender scare” which saw LGBTQ+ people interrogated, outed and dismissed from government service in a sweeping campaign of fear and moral panic.
The play begins as if the audience is watching a classic 1950s sitcom, complete with a living room set, product placement, and an applause sign hanging over the stage that lights up at the end of each scene. We see a cocktail party in full swing with Bob, Norma and their partners in attendance, along with their boss and his wife. Bob and Norma are US State Department employees tasked with identifying and reporting “sexual deviants” within their ranks. The only problem is that they are married to each other’s partners in a carefully constructed, fragile ruse – living in gay domestic bliss next door to each other and making their entrances and exits to Bob and Millie’s living room via the closet.
Right from the end of the first scene of the “sitcom”, when the comedy stops and the drama begins, Payne’s sharp writing and Patrick Kennedy’s brilliant, insightful direction kick the action into overdrive as themes of fear and the weaponisation of identity are not only explored but turned inside out.
The cast are tight, with flawless comic timing. Where they excel is making the switch from comedy to high-stakes drama seamlessly. And it is this ability to combine very funny comedic material with a very serious message rooted in the darkness of the beginning of the gay rights movement that hooks the audience in and kept this reviewer on the edge of their seat for the entire 2 plus hours.
Luke Visentin’s Bob is staunch, stoic, and hell bent on maintaining the charade of 50s hetero-normative bliss. He anchor’s the play’s tension with a “father knows best” sternness and is hell-bent on protecting the life he has carefully manufactured, taking the “now is not the time” approach to gay rights.
Norma, his “secretary” (played by Dominique Purdue) is torn between protecting what life she and “wife” Millie have behind “closet” doors and wanting a more authentic and open existence. Her inner turmoil is reflective of the 1950s all-American closeted gay life, which, when watching this production of Perfect Arrangement, seems not that long ago.
Jordan Thompson’s Millie is the picture-perfect sitcom wife, and shines in both her delivery and comic timing lending heart, authenticity and pathos to this work which although very period, is unsettlingly familiar in the current socio-political climate of the present day.
Bob’s real life partner Jim (and Norma’s hapless husband”) is played with camp and earnest charm by the charismatic and engaging Brock Cramond.
Rounding out the cast are a perfectly matched Huxley Forras & Brooke Ryan – Theodore and Kitty Sunderson giving us the archetypal sitcom boss and his wife, and the enigmatic Lucinda Jurd as Barbara Grant (a very Karen Walker inspired creation) who inevitably is the catalyst for the drama that unfolds as the suburban reality begins to unravel.
This very tight and cohesive ensemble maintain pace, laughs aplenty and ever building tension as the play reaches its climax at the end of act 2. With a couple of twists and turns that the audience does not see coming, Patrick Kennedy uses the sitcom format to tear apart identity, but make it feel very familiar and safe.
Kennedy, who is also CEO of Sydney Fringe, is a brilliant director, and uses Payne’s very well crafted script to deliver superb performances from the incredibly talented cast. (Side note: Kennedy also directed New Theatre’s The Flea as part of last years Mardi Gras Festival which was also an outstanding production and shows his talent for identifying works that really resonate with the Mardi Gras Festival audience.)
Perfect Arrangement is well paced, sharp and land lots of very funny jokes. Despite the laughs, it has a serious message and a very definite point of view making this reviewer questioning how far we have really come as I left the theatre.
Perfect Arrangement by Topher Payne is Directed by Patrick Kenneedy and plays the New Theatre, Newtown through 7 March 2026.
In his past lives, Damien was a drag queen and musical theatre actor. He made his stage debut as a fat cow in a school production of Joseph in 1984. He holds a BA with a major in drama from the University of Newcastle. He is completely obsessed with musical theatre – especially Broadway divas.
Since relocating to Sydney at the beginning of 2024, he attends every musical he can get to and lives with his partner and grumpy 12-year-old poodle.
His claim to fame is that he once met Patti Lupone in New York and she was nice to him.