REVIEW: The Natural Horse - Salad Days Collective

Presented by Salad Days Collective at PIP Theatre as part of Brisbane Festival

Directed by Rebecca Day

“Clicking yes I am over 18 with a clear conscience is every 17 year old’s dream.”

The Natural Horse (by T. Adamson) was one of the strangest theatrical escapades I’ve experienced in quite a while. Presented almost like an experimental theatre piece: a collage of vignettes, surreal humour, family chaos, queer teen angst, architectural deep-dives and naturally… a horse chilling in a suburban Wisconsin lounge room. I truly had no idea what to expect next, and judging by the confused chuckles around me, neither did anyone else.

The story follows the Kareninas, an ex-Soviet immigrant family whose comfortable home quickly becomes a circus when daughter Masha brings home a horse she found while walking back from school. Masha, played with moody teenage accuracy by Jasmine Prasser, stomped around in baggy pants, heavy eyeliner, purple streaks, a choker necklace and an attitude. She shamelessly flirted with her unsure best friend Charlotte, creating a hilarious tangle of queer longing and awkward sexual tension that felt real enough to sting.

Neve Francis performed as the painfully sweet Charlotte. Young, nervous and trying her absolute best to be pure and polite in a household that was anything but. Their scenes together were oddly fascinating, veering between deep confessions, bizarre questions, whispered secrets and very questionable decision making.

Calum Johnston played the cheery Soviet dad Anton who rambled, overshared, and embarrassed everyone in his orbit. Lachlan Orton was their exhausted, quietly dissatisfied, heavily pregnant mother Svetka, relying on expressive facial acting to say almost everything he needed. Every sigh, side-eye and drooping shoulder landed. Lines like “I want both of you girls to drink every boy under the table” absolutely flattened the audience. And both their accents were so good that I am convinced half this cast must actually speak Russian.

Lauren Dillon delivered some of the most bizarrely hilarious moments of the show. As Kirk, the neighbour sporting an enormous handlebar moustache, she delivered a monologue that absolutely refused to end and later launched into a karaoke moment that felt like a full acid-trip detour. Were the lyrics improvised? Because I swear they were...

And then there was Lil Gemini. Georgina Sawyer was a standout as the autistic-coded, hyper-fixated younger sister who communicated primarily in lists, facts, and wide-eyed stares. Her flat delivery, sudden monologues about Timothée Chalamet, childish tantrums, and oddball conversations were some of the funniest moments of the night. She also had entire conversations with Goodboy the horse, who narrated back in an unexpected posh British accent.

Speaking of Goodboy, the horse puppet was golden. (I can't find a photograph of it!) Designed with ramshackle charm and operated with incredible precision by Calum Johnston and Neve Francis, the physical comedy was unforgettable. The poor performer in the back half crouched and shuffled around furniture, squeezed through doorways, humped the couch, conquered stairs and generally caused domestic chaos.

The production design leaned into the surreal. Designed by Ada Lukin, the Wisconsin living room was a comforting blend of browns, wood textures, a fireplace, embroidered artworks and a casually mounted gun above it all. Noah Milne’s lighting carved strange and beautiful visual moments, especially during the snow sequence, and New Resource’s sound design heightened the madness with little pockets of whimsy and music.

One thing this play captured beautifully was sisterly friction and parental tension. The sniping. The eye rolls. The petty emotional warfare. The dialogue often overlapped like a real family speaking over each other. Then suddenly someone would snap into a monologue, or the lighting would shift, or the horse would trot through the scene, and we were suddenly back in pure absurdism.

Scenes were introduced with projected excerpts from Frank Lloyd Wright’s writing. I’ll be honest. I was lost. Utterly lost. Masha even presented a PowerPoint about his work and I still had no idea what architectural rabbit hole we had fallen into. At two hours without an interval, the play certainly asked a lot of its audience. It felt long and occasionally exhausting. I wasn’t particularly compelled to attempt to decode any deeper meaning either (if any). But I did genuinely care about the characters (and the horse), and the performances across the board were exceptional.

Would I watch it again? Probably not. But am I glad I saw it? Absolutely. The Natural Horse was unlike anything else in Brisbane Festival’s program this year. Salad Days Collective committed wholeheartedly to this wild piece, and while I would love to see them take on an Australian work next, I admire their willingness to go big, go weird and go boldly into the unknown.