The Americas, A Theatre Company knew the conclusion to our 2025 Season would be special. The company has enjoyed a powerhouse year, with ten presentations of work in total. We’re thrilled to close out the year with the Australian premiere of If I Needed Someone, a powerful new work by our friend and collaborator, Neil LaBute.This unpublished piece has been seen only in select cities worldwide - Los Angeles, Prague, and now, for the first time, Sydney. Neil has played an active role in shaping this production, from casting to creative direction, making this staging especially meaningful.We’re also grateful to Dr. Gary Busby, board member of The Americas, who has guided the company through the play’s more sensitive and complex themes, with care and expertise.For young people, it’s a realistic and confronting exploration of love in the year 2025. For older folks, it’s a chance to understand just how much things have changed in a short period of time. If you are single, and somewhere between the ages of 18 and 35, Jules and Jim’s story is likely achingly familiar.
Two people, trying to figure out how to communicate, in service of a biological predetermination - connect. A desire that grows ever stronger - albeit increasingly confused, as we navigate an era defined by the illusion of connection.It’s impossible not to have sympathy for them both. Their vignette is stifled by an elephant in the societal room - being the ever-growing list of what men are not supposed to do, and an ever-shortening list of what they are supposed to do. Conversely, and for the first time in recorded history, there are no real guidelines for women. We are told we can say whatever we want, do whatever we want; every time and every space is ours. Nice.What if our heroine doesn’t know what she wants? What if she doesn’t know where she wants to be, or what she’s trying to achieve, or what her boundaries are until they’re tested?My parents met in the early 90s. They worked in the same office building, my father had spied my mother between floors and seen something he liked. He called her up on her office number, and asked her to dinner. She said yes. In 9 months they were engaged, and 18 months later cradled the bundle of joy whose words you are reading at this very moment. That is as simple, and as perfectly as that interaction could possibly have gone.What would have happened if my mother had rejected him upon that first phone call? What if that initial rejection was a test of his devotion? What if my father made this assumption and relentlessly pursued her until she finally accepted him? What if his assumption was wrong? Being the early 90s, a relatively risk-free approach for him. Transport them to 2025, and he would have Jim’s problem. And I might never have been born.Since the pandemic, we have launched into a period of opinion and information overload - social media became a lifeline in a locked-down world. Humanity paused and reflected. The result wasn't quite net-positive; by the time the locks were unfastened, a new status quo had been established. Infinite voices, amplified and celebrated, with very little to offer in terms of definitive truth. TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook offer a perpetual feed of perspectives and opinions, each delivered with absolute conviction. Expectations regarding gender and the dynamics of relationships shifted (and continue to shift) so rapidly, they are impossible to apply in real-life scenarios.Young, single people are left standing there, naked in the dark, a conga-line of ‘how am I supposed to talk to people?’ parading through their minds with devastating rhythm. It leaves little mystery to the fact that fewer young people are having sex, getting married, or having children. The rule book was thrown out, and no one bothered to replace it with a new edition.And yet, during If I Needed Someone, Jules does not outright reject Jim. She’s searching for something in the same way that he is. So he stays, he adjusts, repackages, tiptoes through his opinions, stays palatable enough to maybe get laid. Maybe something more.The truth, the sad and simple beauty of their story is there, if you look hard enough.Through all the testing, the prodding and poking, the shedding and replacing of layers, and the tiny truths that slip through the cracks - through all of it - there is still that quiet, devastating little voice that perseveres:‘Please stay with me until I fall asleep.’