“A Tomb for the American Middle Class”: SUDS’ The Humans

Reviews
Written By Ethan Floyd

There’s something deeply apt about staging The Humans in the Seymour Centre’s basement theatre, the Reginald. Down here, where the air hums faintly and the walls absorb the sounds of the box office above, Stephen Karam’s uneasy family drama—originally performed on Broadway ten years ago—finds a natural home. Director Toby Eastway’s production for the 2025 SUDS major, which has enjoyed an extensive social media promotion campaign, turns this space into a tomb for the American middle class.

Before a word is spoken, the set, put together by Riley Clare and Natasha Reynolds, tells us everything: the stage divided into two strata (an upstairs and downstairs), paint samples indecisively tacked to the walls, and picture frames leaned against the skirting board, turned photo-side in like they’re refusing to watch what’s about to unfold. Empty “New York Pizza” boxes scattered around the set not-so-subtly anchor us in our home for the next two hours: a Manhattan duplex where the lights flicker and burn out, and piles of moving boxes line the walls. It’s a realistic but expressive space, lit with a sickly fluorescence.

As the audience settles, soundtracked by Nora Jones’ Come Away With Me (2002) and Neil Young’s Old Man (1972), we’re lulled, deceptively, into an illusion of safety. As with many SUDS openings, the audience is largely made up of friends and family: faces recognise faces as they enter the darkened space, hands wave to one another across rows of chairs, and bouquets of yet-to-be-gifted opening night flowers are carefully tucked under chairs and between legs. When the lights finally rise, Aidan Hale’s Erik and Michael Sebastian’s Richard enter stage right, keeping awkward small talk as they await the rest of the cast.

Karam’s script, rapid and overlapping, is a gift and a challenge for emerging actors. This ensemble meets it with impressive precision. Josie Carroll gives matriarch Deirdre a brittle sincerity, her mannerisms suggesting years of swallowed frustration. Scout McWhinney’s Brigid, the defiant younger daughter, offers the audience a charismatic and relatable avatar as the story unfolds. And Ella McGrath’s Aimee lends moments of emotional depth and sardonic wit, which stand out as highlights of this performance.

Hale’s performance as Erik grows more haunted as the night drags on, until his final collapse during the show’s emotional climax. Witnessing it all, Madhavi Chauhan’s Momo—Erik’s mother, Brigid and Aimee’s grandmother—wanders in and out of lucidity, interrupting the performance with murmurs and outbursts.

Eastway’s direction leans into what Karam once called the play’s “family thriller” quality. Thumping noises from upstairs and the faltering lights create unease through an accumulation of visual and aural tension. The technical team behind this production understand that the apartment itself is a metaphor: slowly collapsing under an unseen, intangible weight.

If there’s a flaw to be spotlighted, it’s that Karam’s distinctly American writing sometimes feels unnatural in this environment. The Pennsylvanian Catholic guilt, the post-9/11 trauma, the looming shadow of a collapsing middle class—these are not necessarily Australian anxieties. But SUDS’ cast translate them, for the most part, into something recognisable: the quiet despair of parents watching the promise of their children’s generation disappear. A line, spoken by Erik to Richard, “you ever think it shouldn’t cost this much to be alive?”, lands with poignancy. 

SUDS’ The Humans is not a perfect production; it’s a brave, atmospheric and deeply human one. It understands that the play’s real horror isn’t in the thumping noises or flickering lights, but in quiet moments of discomfort and of reckoning.

Down in the Reginald Theatre, those moments linger long after the lights go down.

SUDS’ The Humans is showing at the Seymour Centre until Saturday 15 November.

Ethan Floyd
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