BORN ON A THURSDAY
BORN ON A THURSDAY, New Ghosts Theatre Company at the Old Fitz, 28 November-14 December 2025. Photography by Phil Erbacher: Sharon Millerchip; below, Owen Hasluck and Sofia Nolan; Millerchip and Deborah Galanos
In The Last Seance, a short story by Agatha Christie published in 1926, a medium named Simone says, “A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
Christie/Simone could have added that the crushing often includes a beloved child or two, but they did not. Almost a century later, Jack Kearney has written a play, Born On A Thursday, that does say it, and much more, but without a soupçon of the supernatural to spoil it.
Ingrid (Sharon Millerchip) is a battling single mother, an explosive mix of unharnessed power, intense frustration and inarticulate love for her kids. Heat and rage radiate from her even as moments of tender vulnerability are glimpsed through rare cracks in her carapace. It’s a spellbinding, sustained performance from Millerchip: it’s great to see her back on a stage.
Ingrid’s children are Isaac (Owen Hasluck) and April (Sofia Nolan). Out of the blue, April returns from Europe and her ballet career to find Ingrid’s arms aren’t open wide, although her eyes are: viewing her daughter with suspicion. Not surprising, really, as several years back, April treated the news of Isaac’s catastrophic brain injury (school footie) with complete ignore.
Pottering about fixing things, whether or not Ingrid wants them fixed, is neighbour Howard (James Lugton). His secret devotion to her as obvious as her habitual exasperation with him. They’re rather like a lugubrious Labrador and a snappy Jack Russell: friends despite themselves. And barrelling in from time to time in a whirlwind of noise, cantankerous goodwill, and gaudy earrings is Ingrid’s bestie, Estelle (Deborah Galanos).
Over the course of two hours, almost a year goes by – neatly indicated by a page turned on a wall calendar in Ingrid’s kitchen-diner. The set (Soham Apte) and lighting (Veronique Benett) are miracles of space and detail in the Fitz basement: the kitchenette with checkerboard lino flooring, clashing splashback, an elderly stove with electric coil hotplates, built-in pastel wooden cupboards and Formica countertops. A dining suite occupies the centre of the room, whose 50s fibro walls and decor are well kept. Although one of the twin sash windows is recalcitrant. A feature glass wall – the one nod to modernisation – provides a view, but no access to, the narrow courtyard beyond. It’s initially a bleak vista of Colorbond fence behind an unkempt, raised flowerbed. Its gradual transformation over the year to lush greenery, through Howard’s persistent efforts, mirrors the wall calendar in passage of time.
These months are also played out in the comings and goings – and staying – in Ingrid’s life, and her efforts to hold it all together in the face of various trials. Inevitably, Isaac’s simmering anger at his impairment is central and reflected in his mother’s own rage and resentment at what has happened to him. Unspoken guilt and anxiety also swirl around in eddies between mother and daughter, sister and brother. Then there’s the rock in the current that is Howard, and the surprising splashes of laughter mainly associated with irrepressible Estelle.
This production also has the everyday visual plausibility of Rita Naidu’s costumes. The subtle emotional punctuation from sound designer Sam Cheng, as well as the all-round fine performances, including Owen Hasluck’s repressed energy and ambition as the tragically damaged Isaac, and Sofia Nolan’s intuitive grace as she navigates her own emotional and physical hurts.
It’s set in 1998, before the calamity of sporting brain injury had begun to be taken seriously and publicly. When the offer of a cuppa was still the solution to most problems and the height of emotional connection was a quietly tender dance for Howard and Ingrid, singing along to Crowded House’s “Reckless”.
Take Kearney’s remarkable writing, with the acknowledged dramaturgy from Mary Rachel Brown and the wondrous company, plus Lucy Clements’ sure, astute direction, and you have a remarkable night in the theatre. Born On A Thursday is a future Australian Classic.
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