Theatre company Bullet Heart Club has gained a reputation for thoughtful, insightful work about trans and gender diverse characters, navigating their way through a world that is often treacherous for them. Co-founder and director Kitan Petkovski has time and time again proven he’s an exciting young director in the indie theatre space – grappling with everything from the large canvas of The Inheritance to more intimate work like Thirty-Six.
With the
company’s commitment to a cross-disciplinary approach to theatremaking (much of
their work is tricky to pin down, genre-wise), it makes sense that this one-person
cabaret feels like it’s many things in its seventy-minute running time. And who
better to cast as the titular Sugar than the mercurial, multi-talented Tomáš Kantor.
Sugar premiered at Melbourne Fringe in 2024 and was
nominated for numerous awards. It has since toured around Australia, including
the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Last year the show flew to Edinburgh and got
numerous rave reviews. I missed it the first time it was on in Melbourne, so I’m
very glad it has returned for a season at Arts Centre Melbourne as part of
Midsumma.
Sugar wants to take advantage of their penchant for
transactional relationships and go next level - get themselves a “sugar daddy”.
The only problem is, their only frame of reference for sex work seems to be
Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
Ro Bright’s script is a wild array of ingredients: sometimes
hilarious and always astute - allowing Kantor to show off a whole bag of tricks.
He swerves from working the crowd (house lights up!) to singing smoky covers of
pop songs to retelling entertainingly convoluted stories about meeting up with
a potential daddy and with a Kiwi bartender on the lookout for Sugar’s safety.
It’s an intriguing mix of discerning confessional and bawdy TMI.
Kantor has a beautiful singing voice, has the audience
wrapped around his finger, but knows exactly the moment to take us carefully
into darker, more confronting material. Don’t worry, there’s a lot of queer joy
in this show, but it’s 2026. Sugar finds time to be honest about the world we live
in, too.
Bethany J Fellows' visual design is endlessly inventive. On
first impression it’s striking but simple, but as the show progresses, the pink
set with a cut-out heart at the centre is more than the Insta-ready backdrop it
first appears to be. Lighting Designer Spencer Herd dazzles with an array of
cues that help to amp up the camp, as Kantor struts their stuff in chunky-heeled
boots. Rachel Lewindon’s musical arrangements of songs we all know are tuned to the
emotion of the moment - shifting from glorious and celebratory to dark and despairing.
This is another success for Kitan and Ro and their company Bullet Heart Club. Sugar is a triumph.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
The show is playing in the Show Room at Arts CentreMelbourne until January 25
Photos: Mark Gambino
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