HOODS is a gripping show focused on gritty themes – domestic violence and homelessness to name but two. Played out on a stripped-back stage at Subiaco Arts Centre, two twentysomething actors – Joshua Everett and Natasha Pearson – performed brilliantly as they morphed through a whole collection of characters with nothing more than a tilt of the chin or a change of breath.
Although written by playwright Angela Betzien decades ago, it feels like it could be set in Perth in 2025. The props are minimal – a couple of car seats, a few tyres, an ominous wash of light—that’s it. And with the set pared back to its bones, every line lands like broken glass on concrete.
Between scene changes, poetry erupts. Think rapid-fire street-rap stitched with lyrical grace, a heartbeat that carries us from one gut-punch to the next. It’s the breather we need before diving back into the kids’ reality: abandonment, inadequate meals, and silence from the adults who are meant to care. Director Andrea Gibbs (best known for her Barefaced Stories nights) doesn’t cushion the blow; she hands it to us raw.
Is it feel-good? Not even close. But it is urgent. It reminds the comfortable among us—myself included—that childhood in Australia isn’t universally backyard cricket and Milo. Some kids are surviving, a long way from thriving, and HOODS refuses to let us forget that.
There’s only one performance—23 May—and seats will vanish quickly. Grab a ticket, bring someone who needs a perspective check, and let this fierce little play rattle your bones.