Sweet Road

In August this year, Wyong Drama Group was evicted from their beloved Memorial Hall (which had been home for almost 50 of it's 62 years) as it was demolished to make way for a purpose-built theatre facility – slated for completion in December 2015. In switching to the much smaller Grove Community Centre, they could have been forgiven for choosing a far 'safer' production to woo audiences to the alternate venue – but such is WDG's faith in it's youth membership, they allowed 21 year old Joshua Maxwell to direct this reasonably low-key Australian play.

Renowned as the creator of the phenomenally popular and successful TV show Offspring, Debra Oswald had already carved a fine reputation for her witty and darkly humorous plays, most notably Mr Bailey's Minder.

Sweet Road is a monologue-driven, intertwining, bittersweet drama which would challenge any ensemble cast with it's multiple scene and set changes. Maxwell keeps it simple using chairs to imply cars (as well as chairs) and utilising projections, lighting effects and soundscapes to fill in the missing pieces of his eclectically-dressed, open, single set.

Featuring a predominantly youthful cast of confident and capable performers, Sweet Road is as bumpy and meandering as the outback roads upon which it is set. While decidedly young for the roles they portray, Scott Russell and Jessica Pascuzzo are surprisingly well-cast as the bickering young white-trash parents, Kalani Hirst is a scene stealer as the ethereal, kooky hitchhiker, Marc Calwell and Scott Osborne poignantly portray male vulnerability, while Kyle Carlson and Cassie Room offer able support in their dual supporting roles. But it's Danielle Brame Whiting's pivotal character of Jo which provides the glue that holds the plot together, and she does a wonderful job of subtly exploiting both the humour and the drama in her dialogue without going over the top. 

Rose Cooper