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The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Trophy Boys review – gripping and entertaining play tackles urgent issues
An Australian playwright's debut work receiving international transfers to great acclaim and extended runs is extremely rare; that it's happened twice in 12 months, along with two other starry international productions of local works, is extraordinary. Right now, the Australian voice has an increased currency on international stages – and it's our stories of power, privilege, gender and identity that are making waves. First, there's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Kip Williams' dazzling Oscar Wilde adaptation, remounted for a Tony and Olivier award winning international run starring Sarah Snook. Then there's Prima Facie, Suzie Miller's searing one-hander about a cutthroat lawyer who experiences the justice system as a victim after a sexual assault, with an international production starring Jodie Comer that was also heavily awarded (a film adaptation is in the works, starring Cynthia Erivo). Then there's Counting and Cracking, S. Shakthidharan's breath-taking 2019 debut, a family epic that played at New York's Public Theater in 2024. Now, there's Trophy Boys. Written by actor and playwright Emmanuelle Mattana (Mustangs FC) when they were 21, the play debuted in 2022 at Melbourne's La Mama and has since had sell-out local seasons as well as a twice-extended off-Broadway run under the helm of Tony Award-winner Danya Taymor. This month, the original Australian production, directed by Marni Mount, returns for an east coast victory lap, starting at Sydney's Carriageworks. Jared (Fran Sweeney-Nash), David (Leigh Lule), Scott (Gaby Seow), and Owen (Myfanwy Hocking) are the Year 12 debating team at Imperium, an elite private school. When we meet them, their trophy-deciding bout is just an hour away, and they're already cocky about their success. They're up against their sister school and clearly don't consider them competition until the debate topic and position is revealed: that feminism has failed women; affirmative. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The boys – played here and in every production by actors who are non-binary or women – are horrified. They're feminists, they proclaim. They love women. Arguing the point will get them cancelled and might even rule out any future chances of becoming prime minister. Owen, the one dreaming the hardest of Kirribilli House, even suggests that they forfeit – largely for the optics. But the boys' thirst for the win trumps their desire to be seen as good, so they start scheming. Could they say feminism has failed women because it isn't intersectional? Could they say that getting women into CEO roles hasn't done anything to address broader gender inequities? They brainstorm, they sweat, they spray a lot of Lynx Africa – and, at one point, they even perform an energetic dance break. Then the play pulls off a bait-and-switch: a new piece of information, that shouldn't be spoiled, reaches their closed-door prep session and gives all the rhetoric being flung around the room a sudden urgency. The play is a sprint at about 70 minutes, and after the twist, it takes off: you watch personal gain weighed against women's interests in real time, as the group uses its debate skills, subtly different stores of acquired power, and their awareness of larger social dynamics to reveal the gulf between all that box-ticking politically correct talk about feminism and how many men actually treat women. The show is adjusted to fit the region in which it's being performed: the boys off-Broadway are American, but here at Carriageworks, in local accent, they are instantly and identifiably Australian, of the same social cohort of male students who created and circulated graphic deepfake images of girls from their school, or ranked girls' looks for sport. The play is gripping and entertaining, but not as incisive as it might be. Early scenes run on necessary tonal shifts: it starts with camp choreography and quick laughs that lull us into a sense of comfort to be shattered later, but the narrative throughline isn't drawn tightly enough by Mattana, or facilitated clearly enough by Mount, to make the piece feel cohesive. The performances alternate between drag-king-satire and chilling realism in ways that aren't always clear. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion In scenes where the boys race to construct their debate arguments, the dialogue is more didactic than character-driven; a little more workshopping would probably see those talking points tied more deeply to character and to the group's interesting and occasionally under-tapped personal dynamics. For example, there's a fascinating social hierarchy in the group that only gets a glancing look-in before the plot twist; if we knew the group dynamics better in the first half, the second would be even more powerful. But it's an exciting play: bursting with urgency, laced with keenly observed behaviours filtered through a queer lens, it speaks directly to issues that are choking schools, universities and social groups right now. While its dramaturgical build isn't as sharp as its dialogue, it's the kind of play that has you leaning forward in your seat. I attended a Friday night performance, sitting among a diverse audience that skewed young, and felt a current of close attention. Leaving the venue, I overheard lively, thoughtful conversation about the play. Trophy Boys starts a conversation; the audience was continuing it. That's a valuable export. Trophy Boys is playing at Carriageworks, Sydney, until 3 August; Riverside, Parramatta (6-9 August); Arts Centre Melbourne (12-24 August); Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane (25-30 August)
New York Times
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Trophy Boys' Review: The Nerds' Case Against Feminism
Has feminism failed women? That's the uh-oh question facing the Imperium School's senior debate team when asked to argue the affirmative in the finals of their league competition. But asserting that proposition against the girls from St. Gratia feels deeply uncomfortable to the four teenage boys who make up the team. Worse, it feels like a sure way to lose. And losers are not what Imperium's debaters, no matter how nerdy, are expected to be. How will they get into Yale or Harvard — or 'maybe … like … N.Y.U.?' — if they're caught defending the patriarchy? How will Owen, their best speaker, run for president one day, as he intends to, with video of him vivisecting feminism in the ether forever? That's the setup for Emmanuelle Mattana's 'Trophy Boys,' whose title suggests that what's at stake is more than a contest. Regardless of their protestations of love for their mothers and sisters, the team members are mostly concerned with preserving their privilege as preppies and men. Their feminism is the kind that crumbles the moment it asks something of them beyond lip service. 'Trophy Boys,' which opened Wednesday at MCC Theater, addresses their bad faith in many ways but not, alas, in the most important one: a convincing narrative. Mattana begins with satire so broad it's indistinguishable from burlesque, as the Imperium team arrives at St. Gratia for their power hour of prep time. How stoked they are by the posters of feminist thought leaders — Oprah, Malala, Yoko — plastering the walls! (The classroom set is by Matt Saunders.) 'I am at my most inspired when surrounded by inspiring women,' Owen says. Owen is portrayed by the playwright, who has made the casting of female, queer, trans and nonbinary actors 'nonnegotiable.' Not that Danya Taymor's production asks us to read their gray flannel, blue blazer, repp tie drag as real. (The costumes are by Márion Talán de la Rosa.) Especially when they roughhouse, leaping on desks and licking their notebooks, the cast overplays the characters' youthfulness, making them seem less like a delivery system for gender commentary than a cartoon version of 'Newsies.' But if those choices take some of the sting out of the boys' masculine cluelessness and bro-y vulgarity, they also amp up the ambient camp. Jared (Louisa Jacobson) is a sendup of WASP obliviousness, disowning his advantages while pulling a gold watch and Tesla keys from his backpack. Scott (Esco Jouléy) is clearly in love with him, even as he overcompensates with casually sexist remarks. And David (Terry Hu) is an arrogant incel whose most salient contribution to feminism is calling his father a cuck. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
ABC News
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
How Emmanuelle Mattana's Trophy Boys exploded from independent theatre to national tours and NYC off-Broadway
"It's bonkers," Sydney-born playwright and actor Emmanuelle Mattana says. We're sitting on a velvet banquette in the underground foyer of Melbourne's Hamer Hall, discussing the fact that her play, Trophy Boys, will open in August at the off-Broadway MCC Theatre in New York. The play explores the dark side of male privilege and power through Mattana's queer, satirical lens. It looks at how power and privilege emerge and are cultivated and defended in boys through our institutions and culture more broadly. To say those themes have resonated would be an understatement. Since its first performance at Melbourne's La Mama Theatre in 2022, Trophy Boys has been restaged at Melbourne's fortyfivedownstairs, garnered rave reviews, had a national tour, been nominated for four Green Room Awards, and won the Sydney Theatre Award for Best New Work in 2024. It's all the more impressive when you consider Mattana began writing the play, her debut, in which she also starred, in 2021, when she was just 20 years old. Set on the eve of elite all-boys school St Imperium's inter-school debating final, Trophy Boys unfolds in real time as four boys prepare for their debate against their sister school. But there are two big twists, Mattana tells ABC Arts. "One is that all the boys are played by female and non-binary performers in drag. The other is they are asked to argue that feminism has failed women." The topic sends the boys into a tailspin, threatening to shine an uncomfortable light on the hypocrisy behind their self-declared feminist views. "I'm interested in having a conversation about how masculinity is the performance and how especially young boys are taught how to perform it," Mattana says. That the show deals with serious topics, like sexual violence, in a satirical way is a balancing act, she says. "These things are really confronting, really full on. But there's a sort of wink-wink we get to do to the audience that says, 'You're safe here — this is your opportunity to laugh at the people who have done terrible things.' I think that's been really fun — it's a joy to be able to send up awful boys." Mattana began writing Trophy Boys after the historical rape allegations against former Australian attorney-general Christian Porter (which Porter denies) made headlines in 2021, pertaining to a sexual assault at an inter-school debating competition in the late-1980s. This led Mattana to reflect on her own experience as a school debater (where she first met Trophy Boys director Marni Mount), and how cultural events such as debating often intersect with privilege and societal power. "Marni and I often joked that we probably knew the future prime minister because of what we did, before realising that it maybe wasn't a very funny joke. The people we know and the things we do are this direct pipeline to power in a really tangible way," she says. Trophy Boys opened at Melbourne Arts Centre in 2024 as part of its national tour, hot on the heels of another scandal; revelations about sexist behaviour at Yarra Valley Grammar, "where boys had a spreadsheet and they talked about unrapable women," Mattana says. "Thank you so much for keeping my writing relevant," she says with her tongue firmly in cheek. As she prepares to head to New York to rework Trophy Boys for a US audience, Mattana says that, while she'd hoped otherwise, things seem to have changed for the worse. "I wrote the play about boys who, even though they held these sorts of deeply misogynistic views, knew all the right things to say. They would pretend to be feminist and woke. Now I think men more than ever are feeling emboldened and that they don't even have to put on the act anymore. "It was so bold of me to think that misogyny was just going to disappear." Since its independent theatre beginnings as part of La Mama's exploration season, Trophy Boys has been performed across Australia to a broad range of audiences. "But one of the best things was getting it included in the Victorian curriculum," Mattana says. Its inclusion in 2024, and special performances for school groups, has already sparked frank and fruitful conversations with teenagers, teachers, parents and cast members about the ways misogyny perpetuates sexual abuse and violence in this country. Mothers, especially, have asked Mattana for advice about how to debrief after the play with their sons. "It's been the mums' and kids' show," she says, proudly. The success of the play's 2024 national Australian tour caught the attention of director and producer Amy Marie Haven - the creative development manager of Michael Cassel Group. Haven will produce its forthcoming season at the MCC Theatre in New York. It will be directed by Tony-Award-winning director Danya Taymor. As well as helping adapt the show for an American audience, Mattana will reprise her role as teenage brainiac Owen alongside an all-new cast of performers, including non-binary and trans actors. "For me, it's really an exercise in finding out what is culturally the same between Australia and the US and what is different," she says. "With the sort of climate we're in now and what's happening in the US, especially to queer and trans young people, I'm hoping the show can be a sort of battle cry." With Mattana in New York, non-binary actor and writer Myfanwy Hocking has been cast in the role of Owen for the forthcoming Australian tour, directed by Mattana's longtime collaborator, Marni Mount. It's yet another sign that Mattana's show, and its influence, is ready to grow and adapt to the times. "On the one hand, I'm devastated to be saying goodbye to my little baby," Mattana says, smiling ruefully. "But I'm so excited that other people get to step into those school shoes." Trophy Boys will tour to Sydney's Carriageworks (July 23 - August 3) and Riverside Theatres (August 6-9), Arts Centre Melbourne (August 12-24) and Brisbane's QPAC (August 25-30).
