Waiting for Chloe

Anna Sokolova

Oct 4

3 min read

Sydney Fringe 2026

The review

Set in 2009 (though it is easy to imagine happening now), this play is about bucks party night, when three men sit somewhere in a rental apartment far enough from their homes, gulping countless cans of beer, waiting for Clare, a paid woman, booked for their entertainment.

Simple arrangement of plastic chairs and an Esky box, summer outfits and thongs, a couple of weird toys for drinking - it all perfectly speaks about temporary, rented for an occasion, short stay.

Davo, a groom-to-be, is the only one wearing all black, including a creepy balaclava - a part of the game; he is better off staying unrecognised, living only his eyes, lips and hands bear. He is tall, thin and flexible like a circus gymnast; his body language is strangely elegant and vivid.

Slug, the oldest of them all, in his forties, is a hilarious energy ball, non-stop talking, beaming with fantasies, anticipation, inappropriate jokes, and sparkly acting in his solo scenes. He is the only one in their company playing well in the moment, agile in adjusting.

GB is the one who attracts attention with a sense of some hidden danger, burden, or something he keeps behind closed doors.

They look like a gang, hyping each other up; it is doubtful that each of them, left alone, will have so much bravado.

Josh Hammond, James Ford and Chester Lenihan, each spot on for his character, are an ensemble with great chemistry. The flow of lines they deliver is dense. They ride the roller-coaster of intense rolls of emotions and handle a solid volume of writing finely. The language and some turns in the play are admirable, like their anti-non-cliché chat guessing who the woman they are expecting is, still throwing in sassy comments like “She does not think; she is alright”.

While watching, one needs a conscious effort to differentiate what the main point is here. The line of what is acceptable by these men is fluid. The fun these men have, their bubbling, is contagious. Their cynical comments are funny, but then, playing drunken “Never Have I Ever”, the deeper truths, pains and uncertainties are floating to the surface of the conversation, being promptly pushed away again. They exist in a crack left by moral rules they follow depending on the environment. The multifaceted behavior of these men is impressive. Davo fascinates GB with the warmth and care in the voice returning the call to his fiancé. GB weakens for a moment, bitterly quoting a line from an email his ex sent him breaking up: “I don't know who you are when I am not there”, flickering it back to a joke when boozy Davo stupidly asks “what did she mean?”

There are several interpretations of the main message one can lean on when watching this work. There is certainly a clear way to ground it in the reality we live in now, remembering, for example, a ferocious amount of violence against women. There is nothing in the play referring to threats, but the way these men talk about women might get post-thinking far. With that, a large part of this work is about the tight knot of emotions in men, along with an excellently picked set of observations, and that is a completely different way of contemplating the script. That makes one feel the story is someone falling into pieces. If this can be tightened up, this work will feel more complete, and it might then provoke an explosive reaction from the audience to the ending, instead of a slight confusion, which feels like a dominant reaction now.

There is a big claim that the idea and some key details of this work shadow “Waiting for Godot” by Beckett, but this overall concept, though, as described by the writer himself, is not really propagating through. Without being explained in the Writer’s note, one most probably will not read it off this story on a balcony. Perhaps it is too realistic and recognizable to present itself as existential; hence, a clever and unexpectedly absurd ending is landing off.

“Waiting for Chloe” had a double sold-out season at Sydney Fringe in September, and despite my technical comments, it is very clear to me why.