‘The Lucky Country’ is crafted by two exciting Australian theatremakers: composer and lyricist Vidya Makan, and director Sonya Suares. It reclaims and reimagines our national songbook, with a soundtrack performed live by a five-piece band (featuring yidaki) alongside the six-piece ensemble.
It’s a chamber musical with an original score paying homage to some of Australia’s greatest musicians. . . Think Kylie Minogue, Jimmy Barnes, Baker Boy, The Seekers, Electric Fields and more.
We sat down for a conversation with Vidya Makan and Sonya Suares – about collaboration, creation, and the relevant themes audiences can expect in 'The Lucky Country'.
First of all – what is 'The Lucky Country’?
Vidya: 'The Lucky Country' is a high-energy, 60-minute musical about what it means to be Australian. With thirteen original songs, the score is an homage to some of Australia's greatest artists. It is hilarious, heart-wrenching and transcendent.
When you collaborated on this show, what did you set out to do?
Vidya: When I first started writing the show in 2018, I wanted to write a work about Australian identity that centred the voices on the margins. So in a way, it was about representation. When Sonya came on board in 2020, she encouraged me to think much bigger.
Sonya: Writing a show about the complexities of an entire nation is no small feat.
Vidya: From this point on the show grew into something much more significant – not just in terms of the diversity of musical styles, but in our overarching themes. I would now describe 'The Lucky Country' as a meeting place. At its heart, it is about leaning into the gnarly or tough conversations, and showing there's a way to hold these complexities. It's possible to meet discomfort with radical generosity.
And tell us a bit about what it’s been like to work together, building this show from the ground up.
Sonya: You go.
Vidya: Sonya and I have been collaborators for many years across a bunch of different projects. On the surface, we would seem to be quite similar – and there is a lot of common ground. We are both South Asian women and I'd say we're both led by our values in the work we make/wanting to create change in a very whitewashed industry.
Sonya: And beyond. To create change in our world via the stories we tell.
Vidya: Yes. This drive which inspires us to do what we do is, I think, the fuel to our collaboration. We both want to make this world better. But also, we have a lot of really beautiful differences. Our social identities, even the specifics of our cultural backgrounds are very different – the South Asian diaspora covers 50 million-odd people from different corners of the world, religions etc.
Sonya: Vidya's also a fair bit younger than me, which is always super flattering when we're mistaken for each other in foyers. Well – it is for me! I'm squarely Gen X, she's a Millennial – with a Gen Z rising, I reckon. Vidya: Ha! So, I mean, yes, we've definitely had some very different, very strong opinions at stages of the creative process! But working through these differences is at the heart of what our show is about. This very special collaboration is what has led us to create this unique show. I also couldn't talk about collaboration without mentioning the myriad of First Nations artists who have collaborated with us on the work. The most central figure in these collaborations has been with Chenoa Deemal, a proud Thiithaar Warra woman and my very close friend. This friendship runs as a through-line in the piece via our central character, Boy. Through the years of developing the show, we have had to have many tricky conversations, but again, this has resulted in the very special meeting place that is 'The Lucky Country'. Chenoa, Sonya and I are all extremely proud of what we have created together.
Who is ’The Lucky Country’ for?
Sonya: The short answer is: it's for everyone. There is such a huge array of stories and characters in the show, it's nearly impossible not to recognise yourself, your family, your neighbour, the guys at the office.
Vidya: For anyone who maybe feels unrepresented in mainstream musical theatre and media, there is definitely a voice for you in this work. I don't doubt some people who come to see the show may feel challenged at some points. But our endeavour with this show is that no one feels ostracised. It is a radical act of generosity and unity.
Sonya: And there's so much humour. Aussies love to laugh and all our audiences definitely get to come and share belly-laughs and have a great night at the theatre!
Vidya, where did you begin when it came to penning the music and lyrics to this show? What sorts of things were you inspired by?
Vidya: Our process for this was a really cool one. Sonya and I would meet on her nature strip, keeping 1.5m apart per social distancing rules during the Melbourne lockdowns and talk through a certain voice or character to focus on for the week. I would then go away and watch HOURS of YouTube videos, read articles and listen to music of that genre or voice. For example, there is a song in the show called 'Footy And Beer' where we wanted to write a comedy song that somehow talked about our (Australia's) love of sports and how it intersects with 'Aussie masculinity'. I talked a lot to my housemate who was a huge Tiggies fan: I watched matches with her, I watched interviews of footy fans and listened to a LOT of Aussie rock. Each song had a similar process. I would say the research took 80-90 per cent of the time. And then by the time it came to writing music and lyrics, these flowed pretty easily in most cases.
Sonya: And then it was just hours and hours of rigorous tweaking.
Vidya: Yes, that!
Sonya, what’s been the greatest joy in directing this work thus far?
Sonya: Oh wow – look, it's such a joyous room. And at the same time, one full of people who aren't afraid to work hard, stretch themselves, and be both rigorous and humble together. That's a pretty incredible combination – I've not been in another room like this one and it's definitely been a career highlight to lead this work. It feels like an absolute dance party some moments and others are so incredibly tender. Our key creative team, from our MD Heidi Macguire and choreographer Amy Zhang, to our design team to all of our FN collaborators/advisers, our kick-ass cast and musos – it's just a team of exceptional humans. And I should say, what I love about Vidya, having worked with her for so many years, is just how robust she is as a composer/lyricist. She's not precious or fragile, there's no ego you have to tiptoe around, she doesn't chuck wobblies – she just wants this work to be the best it can be. There's so much trust at the heart of this process – and that's really rare. I think it shows in the calibre of her writing.
It premiered in 2023 and has already received rave reviews. What does this kind of feedback and praise mean to you both?
Vidya: We set out to do something that really hadn't been done before. I think we are often fed the narrative that in order for a show to do well in Australia, it has to be 'easily digestible' and/or tried and tested overseas. Having such an incredible reaction to the show meant so much. It proved that Aussie audiences are hungry for ambitious, playful and uniquely Aussie storytelling. Sonya: It meant the work landed on its target audience. The scale and ambition of this show, as we said before, is no small thing. So the fact that it landed so resoundingly with the (myriad different) people we wrote it for. . . That was huge for us, I won't lie.
The show is playing as part of Melt Festival in Brisbane. Why does it belong in a festival such as this?
Vidya: I'm a Brissie girl and have been wanting to bring this work here for so long! And when it comes to Brissie, Melt Festival felt like the perfect fit. There is a beautiful queerness threaded throughout this work. Not just in the identity of our creatives, or in the representation of various characters, but in the 'how' and 'why' of this show. It's about leaning into complexities and how we live in the in-between. How to sit with stories and voices that clash with each other. And ultimately, how we can practise radical generosity with each other.
There are themes of belonging and identity here. Why are these themes more important to explore than ever, right now?
Vidya: It feels so overstated to say that we are living in a moment of unprecedented division. I think for most people, it is extremely scary and confronting to open social media or listen to the news every day. I feel that what is so special about 'The Lucky Country' is not just the fact that we explore themes of belonging and identity, but the way in which we do so. We explore identity and belonging by playing with the nuances of the voices in the margins, but also show how these can exist side by side with other voices, not mutually exclusive to them.
Sonya: It's about the 'and' not the 'either/or'. That's actually where the strengths of Australian identity lie – in our pluralism. That's the way forward. It's really the only way forward.
When people leave ’The Lucky Country’, they should be thinking about. . .
When people leave 'The Lucky Country', they should be thinking about these ideas, and hopefully how they help to make this "lucky country" a lucky place for us all.
'The Lucky Country' plays Southbank Theatre (Melbourne Fringe) 13-18 October and Brisbane Powerhouse (Melt Festival) 22-26 October.
This story originally appeared on our sister site, scenestr.
