★★★★★
It is unusually easy to write about new Australian work, Losing Face. Melbourne Theatre Company has produced a comedy so expertly tuned and consistently funny that the review feels almost incidental beside the experience itself.
The only responsible response is not to over-explain it, but to insist upon it: this is theatre worth your time. It is a show that pays you back in laughter you don’t see coming.
Written by Australian Writers’ Guild Award winner Marieke Hardy and directed by acclaimed Leticia Cáceres, this new work is pitched as an unhinged, perimenopausal Weekend at Bernie’s. It delivers on that promise while finding something sharper beneath the chaos.
Losing Face explores the complexities of adult female friendship and the relentless, often absurd pressure of impossible beauty standards, particularly as women move through midlife.
Set in the striking Sumner Theatre at Melbourne’s Southbank Centre, the experience begins before the action itself, as the audience enters to a curated, conspiratorial soundtrack. Tracks appear to have been chosen with affectionate attention to detail, especially for those who came of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Songs like Barbie Girl, My Humps and Baby Got Back land with nostalgic force, reframing pop culture through its contradictions and the beauty ideals it embedded.
Sound designer Kelly Ryall deftly threads these cues throughout the production with evident joy and rigour, creating a playful and pointed atmosphere.
As the curtain rises, Jo Briscoe’s striking set is revealed: The Royal You wellness resort rendered as aesthetic perfection; slick, serene, and slightly too immaculate to be entirely trustworthy.
And then there is the cast, whose collective brilliance anchors the entire production in effortless precision and play.
Michala Banas as Jo, Madeleine Sami as Simone and Christie Whelan Browne as Lauren form a friendship trio of remarkable nuance and comic intelligence. It is so finely balanced the audience feels like an honorary fourth in their orbit.
As the resort staff, Wil King and Genevieve Morris are gut-punchingly funny. Their appearances signal chaos before a word is spoken.
Across the ensemble, the commitment to physical comedy is fearless yet expertly controlled. The pace rarely pauses, building an almost relentless rhythm of laughter, each beat tumbling into the next with exhilarating momentum.
Melbourne Theatre Company has delivered something genuinely special here, and it is impossible to truly capture the experience in words. Beneath its precision and relentless pace lies warmth, intelligence, and a finely observed understanding of its world.
Losing Face is a work that balances control with chaos, craft with abandon, and comedy with something more quietly human. It is a triumph of ensemble comedy and contemporary Australian writing.
Losing Face is presented by Melbourne Theatre Company and runs to 25 July. Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, 140 Southbank Boulevard Southbank Vic 3006.
Tickets: https://tickets.mtc.com.au/production/19785
Website: https://www.mtc.com.au/plays-and-tickets/whats-on/season-2026/losing-face
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/melbtheatreco/
Photo credits: Pia Johnson
