Megan Wilding first burst on to Australian stages wearing leopard print and toting a shotgun as a staunch and sweary lady-in-waiting in Aphra Behn’s Restoration comedy The Rover. In the decade since, the Gamilaroi actor has carved a swathe through the theatre industry as a serial scene-stealer, plucking plum mainstage roles from Shakespeare, Chekhov, Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde. Television inevitably followed, including a riotous turn as a faux French aristocrat in ABC’s Gold Diggers, a reptile-handler-cum-amateur sleuth in Stan’s Sunny Nights – and most recently, a cost-conscious rainbow serpent in Tony Armstrong’s ABC special Always Was Tonight.
Fans of Wilding’s comedy work might be surprised by her latest role, as the star but also the writer of revenge thriller Game. Set. Match., which opens at Melbourne’s Malthouse theatre this week. Wilding has described the play as “a romcom, until it isn’t”. It unfolds as a kind of verbal rally between a middle-aged white man and a young Aboriginal woman over the course of one night, as they move from wariness through playfulness to full-blown flirtation. There’s a growing sense of unease, however, as you start to question what game is being played – and who the players really are.
Game. Set. Match. has a dark, truth-telling twist and is a no-holds-barred reckoning with various abuses of power – but in particular, the sexual abuse of a child by an adult. At every stage of the play’s development, Wilding says, “there’s been someone in the room that goes, ‘Maybe this is too much’. And I’m like, ‘I don’t think anything’s too much when we’re talking about paedophilia’. I think if we’re gonna go into it, we’ve got to go all-in. Why hide from the extreme truth of it?”
Game. Set. Match. draws on Wilding’s own experiences. It’s not the first time Wilding has used theatre to metabolise trauma: in her 2019 debut, A Little Piece of Ash, she explored her grief over her mother’s death. “I guess in my writing I’ve wanted to explore all the things that I can’t [elsewhere],” she says. “I want to sit with it, discover it.”
And she really did go all in, casting herself in both plays: in A Little Piece of Ash, which she also directed, as a character modelled on her late mum; in Game. Set. Match. as Ray, a former child tennis prodigy. Playing these characters is scary – and that’s the point: “There is the moment of absolute terror, but this is why I’m doing it – as an artist, as a human. [I want to] run towards the thing that I’m afraid of. Because on the other side of it, I know I’ll be fine.”
Wilding grew up in western Sydney – Lakemba, then Guildford, then Toongabbie – surrounded by a loving extended family peppered with artistic talent. She was a “funny little kid” who loved being in the centre of the story, always putting on plays with her neighbours: “And I was never shamed by my family into thinking that that was something I couldn’t do.” At 14 she started taking drama classes and her uncle – the Aria award-winning performer Jimmy Little – sat her down and told her that if she wanted to pursue a career in the arts, she had to go “all in”. His message stuck, though it didn’t truly land until later.
The death of Wilding’s father, when she was 19, pushed her to pursue her acting dreams; she studied at Eora College in Redfern then the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (Waapa). Within 18 months of graduating, she was on the main stage of Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney.
While her career trajectory in the decade since has appeared effortless, Wilding describes it as “working my butt off”.
“Every role that I’m stepping into, I know there’s going to be at least 70% of an audience that comes to see [the play] that doubt that I can do it. Because I’m not the cookie cutter … I don’t fit the mould of how you’re meant to be, look, articulate, as a female actor and as a black female actor. But I’ve got an incredible work ethic, so I push, push, push – because ultimately, I’m a really good actor.”
Through her career, writing has always felt like a natural extension of her storytelling. She remembers writing a response to her aunt’s death, when she was about 10, that made her mum cry and got shared with the whole family. “I think it was from that point that I went, ‘Oh, maybe I can be the one that expresses things, so that we can all feel them’.”
When A Little Piece of Ash premiered, people who had also lost parents would approach her, “not having to hide the grief in their eyes”. She hopes her new play offers a similar solace.
“I think we’re always trying to show that we’re fine. With Game. Set. Match., I hope that people come and see it and feel less alone. I’m not offering healing, I’m not offering an answer. I just want to show that there are spaces that can hold us, and that we can be seen. That’s really all I want: for people to feel seen.”
Game. Set. Match runs 1-23 May at Malthouse theatre, Melbourne
