HIR

By Taylor Mac. New Theatre, Newtown, NSW. July 8 – August 2, 2025

Reviewed : 13 July, 2025

Taylor Mac’s play is provoking. You want to laugh … but feel a bit guilty when you do! Because when you put all the themes together, the world from which they emanate isn’t very funny! The woman put down and abused by her controlling, misogynist husband. The husband, now dependent on her after suffering a stroke. The daughter who’s decided to transgender/gender queer. The son, returning from 3 years of military service under a cloud, and expecting everything to be the same.

It never really is, is it? But this is far worse. There are clothes strewn all over the floor. Dirty dishes in the sink. Holes in the walls. No dining room table. The father, Arnie, dressed in a skimpy nightgown and clown makeup, freezes in front of an air conditioner that his wife, Paige, won’t turn off. If he speaks or moves, she sprays him with water. And she talks. Constantly.

The mess, she explains to her son, Isaac, is a rebellion against how she had been controlled by her husband. A husband who called her “Rib”! There is now no cleaning, no unhealthy food. She can go to an art gallery if she wishes. She can feed him estrogen in a pink smoothie if she likes!

“Don’t you pity him,” she says. “Those who knew him, know of his cruelty, we will not rewrite his history with pity.”

Then there is Max, the daughter who has transgendered and is injecting hirself with testosterone – and refuses to answer to usual pronouns. One of the most impressive moments of the play was Paige’s explanation of this:

“You must use ze instead of the pronouns he or she and you must use the pronoun…

Hir, H.I.R., in place of the pronouns her or him. Max gets very upset if you refer to hir as a she, he, her, or him. Ze wants you to refer to hir as a hir or ze. Ze also gets upset when you emphasize the ze as if commenting on the pronoun when speaking to hir…”

It’s all too much for Isaac who reacts by constantly vomiting into the sink, cleaning the house while Paige and Max go on their cultural day … and sympathising with Arnie. Much to Paige’s disgust – and anger.

Patrick Howard directs the play at a pace that is in keeping with Paige’s determination to stay in control. He keeps her speaking fast, almost too loud. And moving, almost too much. She will not let anything hold her back – or down. Jodine Muir sustains that pace – and that determination in a performance that is magnetising. You want to hate her, but you can’t help admiring her grit and tenacity. You want her to stop talking but, you know it’s her way of re -claiming her space, and her future.

Luke Visentin is Isaac. He shows the mixture of Isaac’s emotions – bemused, shocked, confused, sickened, angry, upset, and eventually lost – as he tries to understand and accept. It’s not easy to portray so many reactions but they are all there.

Max is played by Lola Kate Carlton. They make Max perceptive, easy to react, always on edge, always watching – but susceptible to her “big brother’ and the relationship they used to have.

Rowan Greaves makes Arnie the quiet observer in his own story. His misogyny has come back to bite him, viciously. He sits, watching, interjecting with mischievous monosyllables at the risk of the water spray. It is hard to sustain a role such as this but Greaves makes this Arnie funny as well as emasculated.