By Grace Malouf. Directors Charley Allanah and Grace Malouf. NIDA/ bAKEHOUSE Theatre Company. KXT on Broadway. 24 June – 4 July

Reviewed : 27 June, 2026*

Grace Malouf knows about writing. She has spent time studying, listening and learning about it and, if First, Do No Harm is an example, honing her own writing with meticulous care. Every word in this play matters, every character has depth and complexity, every implication in the plot is introduced with clever subtlety.

Seldom are first plays as well conceived or as well written as this. As producer Talia Meyerowitz-Katz says, “When I finished reading First, Do No Harm … I knew I had just encountered something really special”. Meyerowitz-Katz and the creative team have paid tribute to that “something special” in a production that is as clean and tight and thought provoking as the play itself.

As well as her MFA in Writing from NIDA, Malouf has degrees in economics and Law, a Graduate’s Diploma in Legal Practice and has studied Law in Paris, Seoul and Dublin. It was at Trinity College in Dublin that she “became fascinated” with Medical Ethics. First, Do No Harm grew from one of the cases she studied there.

Primum non nocere – “first, do no harm” – was part of the Hippocratic oath, and has been regarded internationally as one of the fundamental principles of medical bioethics. It infers the need to consider the possibility of harm in any medical intervention that carries an obvious risk and a less than certain chance of benefit. Malouf’s play centres around a nineteen-year-old young man seeking a doctor willing to perform a life-altering procedure – and the consequent reactions of his parents and the medical profession.

Those reactions, personal, professional, implicatory are made more than real in a sophisticated piece of theatre that has been painstakenly researched and meticulously fine-tuned. First, Do No Harm is a play of conflictions, emotional turmoil, principles, ethics – and the love that binds and can unravel a family.

The set, designed by Holden Jane Cohle, is clean, monochrome and minimalist. On a floor of carefully laid cream tiles a movable kitchen island, a table, three chairs and two stools take the play from a living room to doctors’ surgeries and a hospital. The colours are muted as are all but one of the costumes. Cohle’s design, and the lighting (Theodore Carroll) and sound (Ellie Wilson) are as contained as the writing and the direction.

Charley Allanah and Malouf herself direct the play with a strong focus on delivery, reaction, and the tense spaces between. The tension in this play is stretched tautly, sometimes over distance, sometimes very close. That variance of tension drives the play especially as the dialogue is so economic, succinct and emotionally charged. There are no unnecessary words or speeches. Every sentence carries some punch, triggers some reaction or hangs as a scene fades.

Josh Merten plays Alexei, a competitive swimmer who has never felt happy with all of his body. He’s an intelligent young man who has researched his condition and is determined to seek medical intervention – despite how he knows his surgeon mother and Olympic gold medallist father will feel.

Merten finds Alexei’s emotional strength and the resolve to face his parents – and the therapists and doctors who will have to support his request. Moments of dejection and despair are interspersed with bitter silence and rage. No one could not believe that this young man really knows what he wants – and why.

His mother, Melissa is played by Kate Bookalili, who finds the character’s gritty tenacity and ambition – as well as her studied detachment and protective aloofness. Bookalili’s focus, and concentration is total, her silent reactions clear – especially when she is quashed by other medicos or when she realises the intensity of Alexei’s unhappiness.

Richard Hilliar plays Alexei’s father, Robbo, who retired from competitive swimming to look after his son while Melissa finished her medical training. Hilliar finds the complexity that Malouf has given this character. His bluff ego juxtaposed by a wavering self-assurance. His resentment of Melissa’s success and his dependence on her. His pride in Alexei. His vicarious reliance on Alexei’s success. His short temper. His doggedness.

They form a tight family, interdependent, yet independent. They care, but they clash – sometimes too harshly, especially when their trust in each other broken.

Ian Marney is the doctor who finally approves Alexei’s operation. Shan-Ree Tan makes Marney assured but arrogant. He’s ambitious but does his research and is prepared to “take the risk of harm” that could follow the “intervention” that Alexie wants, even when forced to take it to the Head of Medical Ethics, played by Barry French.

French finds the gruff, authoritarian in this character – and the implications of smarmy chauvinism and sexism that Malouf injected into the dialogue, which French makes creepily clear.

A complication in the plot is the competition between Melissa and Marney for Presidency of the Australian Medical Association. Whether the plot needs that complication seems unclear – until Robbo’s final line …

First, Do No Harm is a sophisticated piece of theatre written with care and insight and an acute awareness of the role of theatre in society. It’s also a bloody good play. Grace Malouf is new Australian playwright, who, in the words of Talia Meyerowitz-Katz, is going to take the theatre industry by storm.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine