Review: ‘Julia’ at the Sydney Opera House
E. O. Milne
As I write, there is a stage play being performed at the Sydney Opera House known as Julia. Its contents involve the history of Julia Gillard’s (the first female Prime Minister of Australia) life before she made history in 2012. And if you do not know, Gillard made history through one of the greatest speeches known to this day, named ‘the misogyny speech.’ Her words, at the time, were directed at the head of the Liberal Party Tony Abbott. She spoke out against his sexist comments and actions towards her during her time in power.
Though many know Gillard for this and for her time as Prime Minister, I think that many still are unaware of how she got to where she was. This is where the play Julia becomes of interest.
The dramatization, written by playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, looks into the events leading up to Julia Gillard’s leadership role and her time in the House of Representatives. It tells us of how she was born in Wales but moved to Adelaide at an early age. It also tells you the story of how she went from a working-class family to the woman below Kevin Rudd as he led Australia. But the thing that makes this show so special, is that throughout, the playwright tells us what Julia Gillard might have been thinking in the highlights of her career.
But Julia was not involved in the making of the work, meaning that we could not get her personal idea on what she might have been thinking. Even so, the show takes influence and inspiration from what Julia Gillard wrote about in her autobiography and does her best to implement it accurately into the piece, and this is what intrigues the audience throughout the play. The comedic sense to the snappy dialogue made you feel as though you were inside the mind of Julia knowing what she was thinking through controversial interviews, press conferences and more.
The woman playing Gillard is the star known as Justine Clarke. You may have heard the name from Play School in the early 2000s, but I must say, of all the people who could have played the role of the former Prime Minister, it would have been a challenge to compete with the performance by the Play School star.
During Justine’s preparation for the show, she spent a lot of her time trying to learn the voice of Julia, and the way in which she used her body. And all the work that Clarke put in made the performance even more realistic. This was shown especially at the end of the play as Justine repeated the entire misogyny speech uninterrupted. And if you were to compare the performance and the real-life event, it would have been hard to find a difference in the vocalisation and demeanour of the two women because it was so well developed.
But even though there was only one character who physically talked in the show, that of Julia, there was another character that was on stage near the entire spectacle. But this character was never meant to be in the construction of the script or show. The name of the character was ‘the young woman.’
This was played by the debut actor Jessica Bentley, now even though this character would not seem of much significance if you looked at their direction in the script (there being none), but the role was more of that of a metaphoric sense.
Bentley’s job throughout the piece was to become a representation of a young woman. If that was in the present day or the 1980’s, the character only changed with the times. And at the end of the show, we see this character begin to plant a flower in the centre of the stage. This was to represent that Julia had paved the way for an entirely new generation of Renaissance women.
Now in this show, the acting was what made most of the dramatisation, but the use of set and props was the final detail. The set was very minimalist with the actors standing with mirrors behind them throughout the performance. Then in the centre of the stage, there was a large light that would change around to match what period was happening in Julia’s life.
An example of this was at one moment in the show as Clarke’s character is being interviewed by journalists as the lights begin to flicker, there are microphones placed at the front of the stage with the mirrors also being somewhat projectors which showed images through the mirrors creating an immersive sense which made the presentation comfortable and yet again hard to not be interested in.
In the end, this show was one for the ages. It was something that took a piece of history and made it even more powerful. But the comedic sense and diversity of the show made it a must-watch. Julia is on at the Sydney Opera House until the 20th of May and if you can grab a ticket you need to see it.
Because even if you are not into political affairs and topics of the sort, it is made to be quite easy to understand and great for all ages.
It beautifully tells the story of Julia Gillard and gives justice to her name.