Type: Fringe show, comedy, dance & physical theatre
Girls Gone Wild: A women’s retreat descends into chaos and climaxes in rage. Screaming into the ether never felt so good.
A cautionary tale of sorts, Girls Gone Wild explores themes of compliance versus dissension and symptom versus source. It looks at the underbelly of a society where masking is the only way forward and we’re sold the tools to make it a reality. Set in the ‘Just Let It Go Anger Management Retreat for Angry Women’ this is anything but a retreat. It becomes the seed for the push back and finally an uprising of the female spirit.
Characters enter individually with their own obvious quirks and personalities. Each one an easily identifiable archetype. Dance is their only performance mode, and it’s the only visual that adds interest to the otherwise bleak setting of the retreat.
Combining live dance performance and booming recorded projections, the different mediums are used impeccably to reflect the disconnection between the group and the society they live in. In true big brother style, the leader appears incessantly, delivering orders, mantras and pushing tools to help the women adapt and be their most palatable selves. Tasks are set and performed methodically at first, later mutating into messy.
The ensemble cast (Bella Lopes de Oliveira, Hannah Mourin, Sara Moad, Tina Moss, Steph Wyburn) are equally electric in moments of dark humour and intensity. The steadily percolating anger is palpable. The cycle is perpetuated, the participants are overwhelmed and finally reach their breaking point. Their rage could only be temporarily contained.
In an ironic nod to the wellness culture we’re so familiar with, the set (Kathleen Kershaw) is intentionally dreary. Where participants would expect to be welcomed with warmth they are instead thrown into a sterile petri dish; a lifeless space, devoid of any personality but abundant in toxic positivity.
The repetitive choreography (Bonnie Curtis) to begin with reinforces the mechanical nature of the habits forced upon these women so they can become their best selves in the eyes of everyone else. Later the movement matches the shedding of this rigidity becoming more fluid and primal as the resistance grows.
The production is dripping in symbolism of oppression and determination. A retreat that has devolved into a marketplace peddling shame and promoting transformation into the shrinking violet that makes you perfectly tolerable. The harshness of the projected recordings, being the only source of spoken word throughout, is loud and glaringly judgemental. The performers use their expression and bodies to convey feelings of shame, conformity and release, with piercing shrieks filling the void.
Girls Gone Wild is a trenchant critique of social standards and acknowledgment of the harmful consequences. A modern world fable about the acceptance of conformity, awakening and an eventual resistance. Striking performances blending dance and comedy to show us the underbelly of this so-called retreat and the damage we can create in the name of acceptance.
See our other reviews from the SYDNEY Fringe in the link below
Tickets and Practical Info for GIRLS GONE WILD at SYDNEY FRINGE 🎟️
PACT Centre for Emerging Artists – Made In Hub, 23rd – 26th September 2026
- Concept and Direction – Bonnie Curtis
- Choreography – Bonnie Curtis in collaboration with the performers
- Dramaturgy – Anne-Louise Rentell
- Production Design – Bonnie Curtis
- Set Design and Build – Kathleen Kershaw
- Lighting Design – Bernadett Lorincz
- Sound and Video Design – Bonnie Curtis
- Sound Design Mentor – Patrick Haesler
- Fight Choreography – Tim Dashwood
- Painfully Insecure Girl – Courtney Allerton
- Toxic Positivity Girl – Bella Lopes de Oliveira
- Hysterical Girl – Sara Moad
- Control Freak Girl – Tina Moss
- Passive Aggressive Girl – Steph Wyburn
- Retreat Leader – Bonnie Curtis
- Understudy/Swing – Hannah Mourin
- Development Dance Artist Collaborators – Courtney Allerton, Saskia Ellis, Kate Garrett, Bella Lopes de Oliveira, Sara Moad, Tina Moss, Hannah Mourin, Maeve Nolan, Reina Takeuchi, and Steph Wyburn.
