Review: A Model Murder (Sydney Festival)
Venue: Darlinghurst Courthouse (Darlinghurst NSW), Jan 4 – 25, 2025
Playwright: Sheridan Harbridge
Director: Sheridan Harbridge
Cast: Blazey Best, Marco Chiappi, Amber McMahon, Ryan Morgan, Maverick Newman, Sofia Nolan, Anthony Taufa
Images by Neil Bennett
Theatre review
It was 1954 when Shirley Beiger shot and killed her boyfriend in Sydney. The story quickly became a media sensation, with the trial attracting inordinate amounts of public attention and scrutiny. In Sheridan Harbridge’s theatrical retelling A Model Murder, named after the perpetrator’s profession, the simple open and shut case is expanded to provide a nostalgic perspective of the celebrity criminal, a phenomenon which has only increased in prominence through the years.
The show is immensely entertaining, made captivating at every juncture by Harbridge’s imaginative renderings of a brief moment in time. There may not be substantive explorations into Beiger’s psychology leading up to the catastrophic incident, but A Model Murder proves a charming and approachable examination of an intriguing morsel of our city’s history.
Staged within an actual courthouse, with production design by Michael Hankin taking care to accentuate the authenticity of the surrounds, and enhanced by striking costuming that adds considerable visual flair. Lights by Phoebe Pilcher are thoroughly considered, not only to deliver dramatic effect, but also a sense of sumptuousness to this biography about someone renowned for her physicality. Sounds by Zac Saric and music by Glenn Moorhouse, fill the space not only with tension, but also an unmistakeable glamour befitting the subject matter. Also elevating proceedings is Vi Lam’s alluring movement direction, for the many musical interludes that pay tribute to our city’s nightlife and entertainment industry.
Actor Sofia Nolan is appropriately enigmatic as Beiger, with an inscrutability that only makes her presence more compelling. The supporting cast is highly endearing, especially Blazey Best and Amber McMahon who bring magnetism along with wonderful idiosyncrasies, to their meticulous embodiments of some very colourful characters.
We are shaped by endless tales of this city. Whether remembered or forgotten, we live in the midst of the countless infinitesimal narratives that have made Sydney and Gadigal what it is, connected through time that is cyclic yet amorphic. Human skin provides the illusion of our disconnectedness, but the truth is that this place determines so much of who we become. The stuff that we make manifest, seeps into one another. Our decisions will always be born out of culture, much as the current epoch exalts notions of individuality. The truth remains that humans can only survive through care, even though our natural inclinations so often seem to push us the other way.
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