★★★★★
There’s a moment, about ten minutes from the end of Trophy Boys, where the laughter stops.
Not fades. Stops.
The room goes silent. Pin-drop silent. You can feel the audience recalibrating in real time. What began as a sharp, playful satire lands as something far more confronting. That tonal shift is the engine of Emmanuelle Mattana’s award-winning play, now making its South Australian debut with State Theatre Company South Australia under new Artistic Director Petra Kalive, and it’s a statement of intent.
First staged in 2022, Trophy Boys has already built a formidable reputation. It enjoyed a twice-extended Off-Broadway run, toured nationally, and picked up multiple awards, including Sydney Theatre Awards and BroadwayWorld Australia recognition. That momentum is easy to understand.
Mattana, herself a former champion debater, structures the play like a debate. Arguments are presented, dismantled, reframed. Ideas like fourth-wave feminism, intersectionality and lateral violence are woven in, then tested under pressure. It’s rigorous. But it’s also very funny.
At first.
Directed by Marni Mount, the production opens in full comic mode. Four female and non-binary performers in drag swagger across the stage, hip thrusting and manspreading with uncanny precision. The detail is spot on. The rhythms of speech, the physicality, the casual arrogance.
Fran Sweeney-Nash (Jared) leans into the larrikin charm. Winks. Grins. Tongue out. A used-car salesman’s energy that hides behind “just joking.” It’s recognisable. You can see it at any front bar.
Tahlia Jameson (Scott), looking like a young Lleyton Hewitt, is equally strong. Backwards cap. Tight shoulders. A performative masculinity that feels both constructed and necessary. There’s a flicker beneath it. A softness. A need to say “I love you” under the breath on the phone to dad.
The dynamic shifts with Owen (Myfanwy Hocking) and David (Kidaan Zelleke). Owen, blazer weighed down with medals and badges, carries the sheen of achievement. But the accumulation raises a question: what do these symbols cover over? It’s the most complex arc in the piece.
David, alongside Owen, sits outside the dominant alpha pairing of Scott and Jared. Both characters hover on the edges of belonging, their outsider status edging into something closer to resentment. The play is at its most uncomfortable here, where vulnerability curdles into something harder.
That tension runs through the entire work.
The boys are funny. They are ridiculous. They spray Lynx Africa into the air and down their shorts. They posture. They compete. But underneath the jokes is something heavier. This is a system that rewards performance over reflection. Winning over truth.
And that’s where the play cuts deeper.
Like Lord of the Flies, Trophy Boys uses a small group to expose a much larger failure. Patriarchy. Colonialism. Institutional power. The boys are not monsters. They are products. Trained in debating, logic, and adversarial thinking, they are taught to win at all costs. To defend positions they may not even believe. To protect the system that benefits them.
And they do.
Again and again.
Even when the cracks are obvious.
Even when the truth is staring back at them.
The play’s context gives it additional weight. Mattana’s writing was inspired by allegations made against former Attorney-General Christian Porter. That connection resonates strongly in South Australia. The audience on opening night included people directly connected to those events. You could feel that history sitting in the room.
The design reinforces the themes. School desks. A Sherrin football. A drink bottle. On the walls, images of women like Penny Wong, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Grace Tame and Mother Teresa. Icons of leadership. Of resistance. Watching over a space where those values are being tested and often undermined.
Mount’s direction, supported by Katie Sfetkidis’ lighting design, is crucial in managing the tonal shifts. The transition from knockabout comedy to searing social commentary is handled with precision. The stage darkens. Individuals are caged in the spotlight and hounded from the shadows.
By the final moments, the play is no longer asking questions. It’s demanding them.
What does accountability look like in a system where those in power benefit? How do you change a structure when those inside it are incentivised not to? What happens when logic is used not to solve problems, but to win arguments?
These are not abstract questions. They land hard.
And that’s the point.
Trophy Boys doesn’t offer easy answers. It doesn’t resolve neatly. What it does is force a kind of collective self-reflection. It makes the causes of failure impossible to ignore. It asks the audience to sit with discomfort. To recognise complicity. To question the systems we move through every day.
This is exactly what theatre should do.
Bold programming choices matter. Choosing Trophy Boys to open a new artistic era signals a commitment to challenge the establishment, not comfort. To provoke, not placate.
By the end, the laughter has long since disappeared. What remains is a silence that asks: now what?
Trophy Boys runs to 2 April at the Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre. Presented by State Theatre Company South Australia and Soft Tread in association with The Maybe Pile.
It then runs in Melbourne 21 – 22 April the Alexander Theatre, Monash University Performing Arts Centre. See remaining tour dates below.
Tickets: https://my.statetheatrecompany.com.au/overview/trophy-boys
Website: https://statetheatrecompany.com.au/shows/trophy-boys/
Socials: Socials: https://www.instagram.com/trophy.boys/ and https://www.instagram.com/statetheatresa/
Photo credits: Ben Andrews
Content: Adult themes, coarse language, references to sexual violence, underage sex and a strong whiff of Lynx Africa aerosol deodorant.
2026 Australian Tour Dates:
Hobart 15 – 18 April, Theatre Royal
Melbourne 21 – 22, Monash Performing Arts Centre
Ballarat 24 April, Her Majesty’s Theatre
Canberra 28 April – 2 May, Canberra Theatre Centre
