Sunny Productions | Review by Grace Cassidy
Jade Breen’s Corrugate says so long to the good old days
5 November 2025
A teenager sulks on their bed, huddled under a blanket. Someone calls their name and they pull the blanket off with a huff, ruffling their hair — they look like a fluffy, cranky baby bird.
Jade Breen’s Corrugate, directed by Phoebe Fielden, is a pocket-sized play. A mere 15 minutes long, it plays out in the bedroom of a teenager (Jade Breen) who’s struggling to come to terms with their sibling (Isaiah Prichard) moving out of home.
Corrugate feels like a love letter to childhood. With a set built mostly from cardboard, and a projector screen that transports audience members to the stars and to the depths of the ocean, this tiny play captures how a child’s imagination can conjure a whole world from scraps. A cardboard box can be a house, a monster, or a rocket ship to carry you far away. Imagination is a superpower; it provides an escape when life gets hard. But what happens when the ability to escape is taken away? How can we hold back the darkness when our playmate is moving out, packing the adventures of our childhood into a cardboard box and taking it with them?
Brimming with whimsy and a deep love for the bond between siblings, Corrugate captures the wonder of childhood imagination and, like many coming of age stories, gives a snapshot of that bittersweet moment when childhood comes to an end. It invites audiences to experience an all-too familiar feeling: the grief that hits you when you realise the world is about to change and you aren’t ready to say goodbye.
Grace Cassidy is a writer and aspiring actress. Over the past two years, she has fallen in love with Canberra’s theatre scene by participating in theatre workshops, acting in local short films and getting involved in the Canberra Youth Theatre’s Emerging Artist programs. Grace is passionate about storytelling and has a soft spot for theatre that explores complex family relationships, ride or die friendships, and themes of hope.
