First seen in 2010 at Sydney’s Ensemble Theatre, Rhinestone Rex and Miss Monica was David Williamson’s 43rd play. He’s penned plenty more since then, but this well engineered two-handed rom com has remains one of the playwright’s most enjoyable late career works.

You could even argue that the intervening years of increasingly polarised politics, social division and opinion siloing have even given it a topical point.

Rhinestone Rex is the nom de plume of country music artist-turned-kitchen fitter Gary. Monica is a classical violinist, on permanent furlough from her second violin chair in a symphony orchestra with a debilitating shoulder injury. Were it not for the state of Monica’s kitchen, it’s unlikely they would ever have met.

Glenn Hazeldine and Georgie Parker. Photo © Prudence Upton

From, the standpoint of lifestyle and music appreciation, they have zero in common. He’s into Dolly Parton; she’s mad for Mahler. He goes to Tamworth every year; she takes educational cruises in Europe. He loves The Walking Dead. She reads Pulitzer-nominated novels. There are more substantive things at play: Gary is a blabbermouth and an adept liar. Monica is borderline alcoholic and mired in grief for...