REVIEW: Sunny Tribe District - Salad Days Collective

Sunny Tribe District – Salad Days Collective

PIP Theatre, Milton

Playwright: Patrick Mu’a

Co-Directors: Jasmine Prasser & Rebecca Day

Lighting: Noah Milne

Sound: Tommi Civili

Producer: Georgina Sawyer

“Catch a falling sadness, put it in your pocket, make sure that it fades away.”

I knew within about 30 seconds what kind of night I was in for at Sunny Tribe District. There were friendship bracelets being made pre-show and an audience already giggling as they entered the theatre. This is absurd comedy in its purest form. You have to meet it where it lives. Blink and you’ll miss a joke. Or five. It’s fast, chaotic, and completely committed to its own strange little world.

The premise is simple enough. Knick (Peter Hatton) arrives at Sunny Tribe District, a wellness-style summer camp run by his missing brother Ken. The goal? Turn “sadlings” into “gladlings”. The problem? The four counsellors running the place are so bizarre they may as well be aliens. This KKKC quartet – Kurt, Kay, Kris and Celly – are completely animated from head to toe. Each of them leans into a wildly distinct voice and physicality. Kurt lives in what I can only describe as “meerkat mode”. Kris commits to a nasal, voice-cracking delivery. Kay bounces around like she's had thirteen Red Bulls. And Celly… every time she opens her mouth with that blunt, southern accent, I lost it.

Peter Wood (Kurt), Isabella Berlese (Kay), Darcy Jones (Kris) and Rebecca Day (Celly) are operating at a level of commitment that honestly makes me wonder how they don’t break character every five seconds. Every tiny facial twitch, every odd physical choice, every abrupt accent switch is intentional and so funny. You need four pairs of eyes to catch everything happening onstage at once, and even then you’ll probably miss something ridiculous happening in the corner. Every time a character has something to say, it somehow turns into a full spectacle. And then there’s the stamina. This cast does not stop. Singing, rapping, dancing, sweating, crawling.

It’s clear this is a cast that trusts each other completely, which is essential in a show this tightly choreographed and fast-paced. Every line, every beat, every lighting cue and sound effect is locked in with surgical precision. Directors Jasmine Prasser and Bec Day have clearly drilled this into the cast, because it lands like a perfectly timed sitcom… if that sitcom was the opposite of politically correct. Sound by Tommi Civili and lighting by Noah Milne are used to full comedic effect, punctuating jokes like a perfectly timed punchline.

Visually, the show embraces a deliberately dodgy aesthetic. Fake grass, inflatable logs, painted clouds, caution tape… it’s giving “this is definitely not a cult” energy. Costumes lean into classic camp counsellor realness with fanny packs, bandanas and boots. The script by Patrick Mu’a leans hard into pop culture. We’re jumping from High School Musical to Hannah Montana, Stranger Things, The Lion King, Shawshank Redemption, Harry Potter, the Nutbush… The audience were giving uncontrollable, hyena-level laughter every few seconds. I genuinely find myself wanting to see it again just to clock all the references I missed. There’s a looseness to the performance that made me constantly question how much is scripted and how much is improv. It feels like anything could happen at any moment, but the precision says otherwise. Either way, it keeps you on your toes!

Standout moments come thick and fast. Darcy’s bizarrely brilliant rap about denying the existence of sadness has strong Turn It Off from The Book of Mormon energy. Isabella's alter ego “Bubbles” Welcome to Burlesque number is full of sexual innuendos. There are puppets, random props (the fish!), abrupt Aussie accents that shouldn’t have made me laugh as hard as they did, and moments where I genuinely sit there thinking, are they all on speed? And celery?

Peter Hatton as Knick plays the necessary grounding force, reacting exactly how we are thinking: “WHAT is happening?” Watching him slowly spiral into the madness is half the fun. There are also these unexpected musical and performance moments woven through the show (Drivers License, Girls in the Hood, Where Is The Love), while other “lessons” spiral into something closer to improv games turned motivational preachy seminar.

What I really love is what the show is actually poking at. This obsession with forced happiness. The idea that we can just repress/mask the messy stuff and “fix” people. The counsellors are avoiding discomfort with spectacle, deflection and increasingly unhinged “lessons”. It becomes, in its own bizarre way, a reminder that joy and connection can exist alongside the mess, and that maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate sadness entirely, but to learn how to sit with it… or at least laugh at it along the way!

STD is loud, it’s naughty, it’s very self-aware, and it doesn’t apologise for any of that. This really is a zillennial fever dream of nonsense. So, if you’re up for something chaotic, clever, and genuinely different, Sunny Tribe District is a wild little ride. But if you are an older generation or have a stick up your butt, this might not be your cup of tea.

And for the record… as someone who once worked at a summer camp myself, I can neither confirm nor deny that it is exactly like this.