Humour and pathos form the pivot upon which spins Megan Twycross’s play, Stuck. Ultraviolet light, a polyurethane curtain, refrigeration that resonates as a butcher’s bandsaw, stainless steel, and two female deli employees processed by the supermarket aisle are invitations to enter a staid world, within which Old One and Young One are sandwiched between two hams, pickled, processed and packaged, then offered for sacrifice within the supermarket of life.
Stuck raises a necessary question: what should an audience expect from the theatre in 2026? An investigation of the conditions that keep people at the receding end of the socioeconomic scale in dead-end jobs, or an exposé of the sadness, laughter, and poetry that characterise their plight?
Old One has seen it all, Young One has seen very little, and bastardry has many forms. (Verbal domination in the workplace can deteriorate into physical violence.) Old One’s intimidation of Young One conceals assumptions of age over inexperience, maternalism, and condescension toward an adolescent. But her nitpicking is measured enough. Twycross and director Susie Dee prevent Old One from alienating her audience. Rather, she is an endearing figure: jaded and postmenstrual. As opposed to Young One, who is ambitious for life and on the rise.
That is, until both women become pregnant; Young One conceives in the back seat of a vehicle, while Old One is, somehow, immaculately inseminated. Humour and pathos, sadness and laughter. Combined, the poetry of misgiving made possible by choice and unforeseen circumstance is one consequence of a collision between personal decision and abstract forces.
But what of human beings in the workplace, especially women? Might gender exclusion, lack of opportunity, wage disparity, the patriarchy, and other socioeconomic factors have shaped the lives of Young One and Old One? How sophisticated should our theatre be?
The play’s flirtation with sketch comedy is counterpointed and therefore mediated by pathos and tragedy. Abortion of what is deemed surplus to requirement is not limited to the removal of expired stock from supermarket shelves. Blood gathers in pools on the shop floor. Lives are irrevocably altered. That nuanced bandsaw at rear warns of the brutality of existence; a tense precursor to the poetry of the workplace and lives made invisible by the dehumanising impact of market capitalism.
Stuck is ripe for inclusion in the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) Drama Playlist. Twycross’s script will disturb those about to embark on life’s perplexing journey. Susie Dee’s direction is clean and precise in its presentation of an image that accurately reflects the supermarket deli, and its ambiguous interior. Mobile stainless steel benches allow for shifts in perspective that germinate, unforced, within the imagination of an audience.
Meanwhile, Caroline Lee and Eva Seymour are a considered balance between the young and old, the old and new, and the intergenerational squabble that characterises the contemporary.
But much might also be made of that dismembering bandsaw. The butcher’s trade consists of a methodology, and socioeconomic forces that shape our lives can also be ascertained, examined, and imaginatively reconstructed in the theatre. Pathos and humour reconstitute the status quo. Thought and imaginative thinking subvert and revolutionise it. Nevertheless, Stuck remains an entertaining night in the theatre.
STUCK
Writer: Megan Twycross
Director: Susie Dee
Performers: Caroline Lee & Eva Seymour
Set & Costume Design: Linda Macauley
Composer: Ian Moorhead
Light Design: Amelia Lever-Davidson & Spencer Herd
Production Manager: Stephanie Young
Producer: Kate Hancock
Production images: Darren Gill
Performance details
Stuck runs from 6–24 May at La Mama HQ, Melbourne, including matinees.
Auslan-interpreted performance: 20 May.
Tickets: $15–$35 via the La Mama website
© Tony Reck 2026
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