Sydney Reviews

Proper funny, Sistren is well funny, bare funny, furiously funny.

In performances forged in the furnace of the Old Fitz last year, Iolanthe and Janet Anderson return to Belvoir as bosom buddies, Isla and Violet, in Iolanthe’s fabulously funny script. 

For a full hundred minutes, Sistren has you looking at two impossibly pretty girls with expansive vocabulary and inherent rhythm discussing the socio political state of the world leaving the audience questioning if anything you say or do will ever be of any importance.

What Isla and Violet say and do, of course, is of ever great importance, cascading commentary about community, culture and connection in combustible conversation.

Violet calls Isla My third nipple and biological sister. Cisgender Caribbean diva, Isla, sees Violet as her Ethel Cain adjacent transgender bestie. Their relationship is a glue that binds through resilient defiance against racial and sexual discrimination and divisiveness, aided by cross cultural boundary busting and Ackee salt fish feasts.

Iolanthe and Janet Anderson work in cosmic, comedic accord, characterisation charismatic, timing impeccable, delivery precise, together a tour de force that ascends the cliché.

Production designer Emma White has decked the space with all the furnishings of a school classroom except everything is fluffy and saturated in pink, and the girls clad in glamourised school uniforms altered to make them look cunty.

Lighting designer Kelsey Lee adds to the glamour and vibe, spotlighting and highlighting feminine hues whilst not being afraid of the dark.

Under the astute direction of Ian Michael, the sparkling script and palpable vitality of the two performers take root immediately, blossoming and flowering every minute, a progression of perennial playfulness, profane and profound.  

For a short time Belvoir becomes a shrine – The Sistren Chapel – with no ceiling to its incomparable and inimitable power to delight and enlighten.