2025: Looking for Alibrandi

 

 

Looking for Alibrandi. State Theatre Company South Australia presents Brink Productions at Canberra Theatre Centre October 3 / 4, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Oct 3

CREATIVES
Director Stephen Nicolazzo
Playwright Vidya Rajan
Author Melina Marchetta
Set and Costume Design Kate Davis
Lighting Design Katie Sfetkidis
Sound Design Daniel Nixon
Musicians Rosa Voto + Renato Vacirca
Tarantella Choreography Rosa Voto
Dialect Coach Paulo Bongiovanni + Rosanna Morales
Cultural and Language Consultant Lucia Mastrantone

CAST (National Tour in Canberra) 
Chanella Macri: as Josephine "Josie" Alibrandi
Amanda McGregor: as Christina (Josie's mother) and Sera
Natalie Gamsu: as Nonna (Josie's grandmother), Sister Bernadette, and Margaret Throsby 
Ashton Malcom: as Ivy and John Barton
Riley Warner: as Jacob Coote
Chris Asimos: as Michael Andretti
(Photos provided may show Lucia Mastrantone, Jennifer Vuletic in place of Amanda McGregor, Natalie Gamsu)

CREW
Production Managers Lachlan Turner + Steve Tilling
Stage Manager Jacinta Anderson
Assistant Stage Managers Ashlee Scott + Charlotte Welden

LtoR: Nonna, Christina and Josephine in the set symbolically overloaded with tomatoes.
Brink Productions: Looking for Alibrandi 2025
Photo: Matt Byrne

This upfront post-modernist expressionist presentation of Looking for Alibrandi, on the brink of satire, turns the story of the sensitive, intelligent daughter – Josephine – of Italian single mother – Christina – away from what could be an empathetic, though perhaps sentimental, approach to the racism, sexism and social class conflicts in Australia, into a blistering blast of social criticism, leavened by laughter.

 Essentially, the point of the play, as an up-to-date stage adaptation of the 1992 novel, is a justifiable feminist view of both Italian and colonial Australian treatment of women over the generations from Nonna to Tina to Josie.  To make this clear and strong, Chanella Macri plays her character forcefully; and, in expressionist style, at significant points, speaks directly to us in the audience.

In this way we become not merely observers of someone else’s story, but members of the modern Australian community with responsibilities towards people of difference, as migrants and in other ways.  Just as Josephine comes to an understanding and acceptance of her mother’s and grandmother’s position in life, we learn to appreciate Josie’s as she is about to begin university education.

Aimed by Brink particularly for school groups, it's worth noting that nowadays more than 50% of university entrants are women.

Country Arts South Australia provide a useful run-down:

Award-winning director Stephen Nicolazzo (Loaded, Merciless Gods) brought Melina Marchetta’s iconic best-selling novel – which she adapted into the cult 2000 movie – to the stage for the first time, where Vidya Rajan’s AWGIE nominated adaptation joined three generations of women in a passionate, heart wrenching, and unmissable rendering of the Australian classic. With live passata sauce making, traditional Italian music and a soundtrack of Australian pop classics, "Looking for Alibrandi" is a vibrant theatrical experience full of passion, laughs, and beauty.

Performed in English and Italian
Warnings: Frequent strong language; themes of suicide; mild violence. Suitable for ages 12+.

Tonight, Saturday October 4, is the final performance in Brink’s national tour.  My thanks to Canberra Theatre Centre for the opportunity not to miss Looking for Alibrandi.

Curtain call: Looking for Alibrandi Brink Productions 2025

©Frank McKone, Canberra