Aussies aren’t the best at talking about class. That ‘fair go’, ‘fair dinkum’, national mentality makes us more likely to think it just doesn’t exist, as if it’s a thing of the past or maybe just something reserved for the Brits.

When Gary Owen’s one-woman tour deforce, Iphigenia in Splott premiered at Red Stitch Theatre back in 2021, we were coming out another snap lockdown, world-weary and bleary-eyed. We’d just been leaning out of our windows applauding our nurses, thankful for our healthcare sector and suddenly critical of the systemic problems exposed by the pandemic.

Change in this sector felt urgent then; lives were at stake. We became aware of the way our nurses were being underpaid, the lack of counselling support in our hospitals and the disparities that exist in our regional healthcare infrastructure. And that awareness demanded something of us – change.

Jessica Clarke: Iphigenia In Splott. Photo © Jodie Hutchinson

Iphigenia in Splott, like all of Owen’s plays, is about this kind of awareness. Returning to Red Stitch now more powerful than ever, it is a show that expertly skewers the sad fact that we only notice problems, especially...