“Who gives a f*** about whatever some girl is saying. We can shut her up.” – Owen
Since its La Mama debut in 2022, Trophy Boys by Emmanuelle Mattana has played to hundreds of audiences, received a Green Room Award and is currently playing off-Broadway. Still directed by Marni Mount, and with only one cast change (replacing Mattana on New York duties), Trophy Boys returns to Sydney at Carriageworks on the back of a successful national tour.
Trophy Boys was inspired by allegations against former attorney-general Christian Porter and is located in the same niche private school debating world from which many a politician has emerged.
The set, from a multitasking design team comprising Ben Andrews, Mount and Mattana, recreates a classroom: five single desks and chairs spaced around the stage backdropped by a wall hung with portraits of iconic women. To one side, a whiteboard sits portentously. Lighting designer Katie Sfetkidis cranks up the classroom fluoro (and has a lot of fun with the dance sequences).
Blasting into the room to a rising chant of “Yeah the boys,” comes the debating team of St Imperium. They are pumped with testosterone, the ‘good’ intellectual stuff, not the ‘bad’ rugby kind, for the debating grand-final against their sister college, St Gratia. Well, that is until the topic is revealed when the whiteboard is flipped: “That feminism has failed women — [arguing the] affirmative.” Can they actually argue that? Well, fortunately, they are all self-described feminists.
Owen is strategic, as befits someone who wants to become Prime Minister. Rarely on the periphery, he hovers upstage, keeping an eye on everything. Myfanwy Hocking plays him with the right amount of intellectual cunning and deluded self-belief.
Jared, played by the excellent Fran Sweeney-Nash, is charismatic, seeing himself as an uber-feminist because he loves his mother, sister, and girlfriend (in that order). But really, he has no interest in feminism.
Scott, overcompensatingly sexist, is performed with a febrile energy by Gaby Seow that conveys his uncertain sexuality and barely repressed feelings for Jared.
David, the fourth wheel on a tricycle (played by Leigh Lule, quietly good in a less showy role), is introspective, unhappy at home, and probably incel. Maybe not a feminist.
They all understand social justice issues, spout the right words, even have some understanding of feminist history. But will they avoid falling into any number of real or imagined traps that the topic may conceal?
Watching the boys tie themselves in knots attempting to position a feminist argument is just hilarious. They all have secrets too, which aren’t really secrets because at least one of the other boys knows of them. One of those secrets is particularly dark.
The framing of the play as a debate prep highlights one of its central concerns – that masculinity (and perhaps conscience) is performative. As David says, debating is literally arguing something you don’t believe.
Excursions into hysterically eroticised dance moves to that most double-edged of music genres, rap, underscore this performative aspect. It’s just boys being boys, though, isn’t it? Except that it’s performed in school uniform drag by female and non-binary actors. And the play works because of this construction, allowing it to be ironic, sly and even burlesque. Though subtle it is not, Trophy Boys is very funny.
The production dials up the grotesquery, with full-tilt camp energy, especially in the first half, though this comes perhaps at the expense of a deeper interrogation of the intersection of masculinity, privilege, power, and elite schools (notably, Owen is a scholarship boy).
Some of the satirical bite in the very clever script gets a little lost in the boys’ rising panic, and David’s clear misogyny is subsumed in a similar way. Jared’s entreaty, “I love women,” is espoused so often it eventually loses its comedic impact, though possibly that’s the point.
As a consequence of the frenetic pace, when the play turns darker and secrets are revealed, the narrative doesn’t quite have the impact it should because the tonal shift, almost a bait and switch, is so abrupt. Mattana says this shift is a deliberate choice to highlight the absurdity of entitlement that creates toxic attitudes toward women.
The play culminates in the revelation that the boys are not as enlightened as they appear. Quite the opposite. In fact, the scarifying ending more resembles a verbal gang rape. Suddenly we are a long way from Kansas.
With a narrative running in real time at 70 minutes, Trophy Boys is in no danger of overstaying its welcome. It is a tight, clever, and frequently (despite the dénouement) funny dissection of modern teenage masculinity, privilege and attitudes towards women. It could well become an Australian classic.
Trophy Boys runs to 3 August at Carriageworks, 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh NSW 2015.
It then tours to Parramatta, Melbourne and Brisbane. Full dates below.
Tickets: https://my.carriageworks.com.au/overview/1752
Website: https://carriageworks.com.au/events/trophy-boys-2025/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/trophy.boys/
Photo credits: Carriageworks and Ben Andrews
2025 Australian Tour Dates
Sydney 23 July – 3 August, Carriageworks
Parramatta 6 – 9 August, Riverside Theatres
Melbourne 12 – 24 August, Art Centre Melbourne
Brisbane 25 – 30 August, Cremorne Theatre, QPAC
