Review by Freya Rowell
Dick Drawing, Dick Measuring Debaters
The Maybe Pile and Soft Tread Enterprises
Canberra Theatre Centre
YEAH THE BOYS. YEAH THE BOYS. YEAH THE BOYS. Such is the opening chant of Trophy Boys, an award winning 70 minute dissection of teenage misogyny that should be compulsory viewing in all high schools.
The play has returned to Canberra as part of their 2026 tour, first seen here in 2024. Since then the show has won Best New Work at the Sydney Theatre Awards (2024), and had a separate production produced in New York.
The year 12 debate team of St Imperium College are ready to win their biggest trophy yet. An away game for the boys, they start their prep hour in a girl’s classroom covered with pictures of woman-power icons: Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa and Grace Tame among others. Under the portraits’ watchful eyes the young men are presented with their position — feminism has failed women. At first the boys are outraged; as upstanding allies they are ethically opposed. “I love women” cries Jared, a proclamation he will announce dozens of times. But soon the boys start working on arguments to “out-feminist” the feminists. As they toss around terms like “intersectionality” and “male gaze” with varying levels of authority, an illicit sneak-peek at the internet reveals an allegation that makes their discussions far less theoretical.
The script by Emmanuelle Mattana is superb. The perspective is clearly from someone whose high school traumas are still recent memory (Mattana is in her mid twenties), but her deft control over humour and tension is that of a much more experienced writer.
The cast of female and non-binary actors create insightful caricatures of boys every audience member will recognise: Jared (Fran Sweeney-Nash), the self-declared lover of women, primarily their bodies; Scott (Tahlia Jamieson), the crass jock who makes a few more gay jokes than the average straight guy; and David (Kidaan Zelleke), the stoic team advisor and alleged anti-capitalist, despite attending a school with $30,000 annual fees. Myfanwy Hocking is particularly impactful as all-knowing know-it-all scholarship kid Owen, who often serves as the voice of reason in the Lynx Africa smothered classroom.
Mattana’s script is well supported by Marni Mount’s direction. The play’s careful descent into darkness has audiences on the edge of their seats moments after laughing their heads off.
Trophy Boys examines the beginnings of some of the most powerful people in Australian society: the privileged former private school boys who dominate politics. It serves as both a campy satire and a devastating warning, and reminds us that words said in the school locker room may one day be said in the country’s highest office.
