“…to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2
As a parent of three beautiful children aged between sixteen and twenty-two, Venture Theatre Company’s production of Family Matters felt less like watching a play and more like seeing life reflected at me. In many ways, Shakespeare’s famous description of theatre’s purpose in Hamlet becomes the perfect lens through which to view this production.
Director Tanya Press has created a warm, recognisable, and deeply human portrait of modern family life and one that holds a mirror not only to suburban chaos, but to the emotional realities quietly sitting beneath it.
Presented in the intimate Marino Community Hall, the production immediately establishes a welcoming atmosphere. The combination of cabaret-style seating and traditional rows creates a sense of closeness between audience and performers, while the friendly front-of-house welcome and thoughtfully prepared venue set the tone for a polished evening of community theatre. There is an immediate sense of care, organisation, and pride in the production before the play even begins.
Written by Juliet Devon, Family Matters initially unfolds like a familiar suburban comedy. The Taylor household is in constant motion, five children, school pressures, forgotten lunchboxes, endless interruptions, phone calls, competing demands, and an absent father working away from home. The audience laughs early and often because the situations feel painfully recognisable. The comedy does not emerge from caricature or exaggerated farce, but from truthful human behaviour and the exhausting absurdity of family life itself.
Yet the production’s greatest strength is its refusal to remain merely a light domestic comedy. Beneath the frantic rhythms of everyday life lies something far more layered. As the play progresses, deeper tensions begin surfacing around ageing parents, shifting loyalties, financial concerns, caregiving responsibilities, and the invisible emotional labour that often sustains families. What initially appears warm and chaotic gradually reveals genuine emotional weight.
Importantly, the play never positions the parents simply as authority figures or comic victims of chaos. Instead, it thoughtfully explores the parental perspective the emotional exhaustion of carrying responsibility, constantly negotiating the needs of children while simultaneously caring for ageing parents, and the disappointment that comes when teenagers refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. Devon’s script captures that familiar parental tension between wanting to protect children and wanting them to embrace honesty, accountability, and maturity.
One of the sharpest observations in the play emerges through the younger characters themselves. The teenagers are not demonised, but they are recognisably self-focused, emotionally reactive, and often unable to see beyond their own immediate frustrations. This lands particularly well in the storyline surrounding cheating on an exam, where consequences, honesty, and victimhood collide. One of the production’s standout moments comes from Willow, whose exasperated response to her sister continuing to see herself as the victim after being caught cheating cuts cleanly through the family dynamics. The line lands because it feels truthful that moment when even a younger sibling can recognise the absurdity of refusing accountability.
At the centre of the production is Kristy Pace as Susan Taylor, the exhausted but determined mother attempting to hold everything together. Pace gives an engaging and authentic performance, beautifully capturing both the warmth and relentless pressure of modern parenting. Her portrayal balances humour, frustration, affection, and emotional fatigue with sincerity, and many audience members will undoubtedly recognise aspects of their own lives in her performance.
The younger cast members deserve praise. Venture Theatre Company has clearly fostered a safe and supportive environment for its young performers, allowing them to thrive confidently on stage. Lara Wallace gives a gentle and thoughtful performance as Thea Taylor, bringing maturity and quiet support to the family dynamic. Matilda Makai perfectly captures the self-absorbed outrage and phone-focused frustration of teenage life as Grace Taylor, while Marcus Murdoch demonstrates impeccable comic timing as Ross Taylor, delivering some of the production’s funniest moments with confidence and precision. Amelia Press brings exactly the right blend of youthful energy, impulsiveness, and childlike honesty to Molly, while Willow Hooper captures Harriet Taylor with natural exuberance, freedom, and charm, delivering some wonderfully observed moments with confidence and clarity.
The supporting adult cast further strengthen the emotional core of the story. Mandy Price effectively portrays the older generation whose increasing vulnerability becomes central to the family’s emotional strain, while Lucy Marshallsay’s Kylie offers another perspective on sibling responsibility, loyalty, and caregiving. Graeme Turner’s off-stage voice work was also effective, helping maintain the realism and technical precision required throughout the production.
The ensemble work throughout the production is one of its greatest assets. The cast create believable family rhythms interruptions, arguments, unfinished conversations, affection hidden beneath frustration, and the constant overlapping noise of domestic life. The performances work best because they are grounded in emotional truth rather than broad comedy, allowing humour and vulnerability to coexist naturally. The chaos feels controlled rather than forced, giving the production strong momentum while still allowing quieter emotional moments space to breathe.
Technically, the production is slick and impressively rehearsed. The lighting effectively transforms the stage into the familiar front room of a suburban home, while the sound design deserves special mention. Given the complexity of numerous phone calls some heard by the audience and others intentionally unheard the technical precision required is considerable, yet every cue landed seamlessly throughout the performance. Great work by Shelley Carman.
Devon’s script thoughtfully explores themes of family obligation, communication breakdown, generational tension, caregiving, honesty, accountability, and emotional survival without becoming sentimental or heavy-handed. At its heart, Family Matters asks difficult questions: How much do we owe our families? What happens when people spend so long surviving that they stop truly listening to one another? And how do love and resentment manage to exist side by side within the same household?
What makes the production resonate so strongly is its emotional honesty. It understands that family conflict rarely exists in opposition to love; more often, it grows directly from it. Arguments become expressions of exhaustion, disappointment, fear, and care spoken imperfectly. The comedy never undermines the sincerity of the story, and the sincerity never overwhelms the humour.
While some moments lean into familiar domestic-comedy territory, the truthfulness beneath the humour gives the production its strength. Venture Theatre Company captures not an idealised family portrait, but a truthful one; messy, loud, exhausting, affectionate, frustrating, and deeply human.
Like Hamlet’s vision of theatre itself, Family Matters ultimately succeeds in holding “the mirror up to nature,” reflecting the pressures, absurdities, vulnerabilities, disappointments, and fragile connections that shape modern family life.
