Sarah Kher-Bek
So much of this world runs on the emotional labour of women, while most of it remains invisible. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being needed by everyone and having nowhere to put yourself.
In The Manager Is Me, Dayna Fallon plays the overextended Jo. Jo is a mother, a wife, a caretaker, a walking calendar, an emergency response team and, apparently, the only person in the house who knows where anything is. She is the machinery keeping an entire family running. And like most machinery, nobody thinks much about it until something breaks.
There is something wonderfully recognisable in the production’s portrayal of domestic chaos. The endless lists, the forgotten appointments, the children who appear to possess an almost supernatural ability to create emergencies, and the husband who, despite everything happening around him, would still quite like a glass of water.
The humour is sharpest when it exposes the absurdity of labour so constant it has become invisible. Jo performs an almost musical inventory of her responsibilities, moving through tasks with the rhythm of a machine and a smile that looks increasingly like part of the uniform. The effect is both funny and quietly horrifying. Even her autopilot has a soundtrack.
But beneath the comedy lies a more uncomfortable question: when a woman is responsible for everyone else’s survival, who is responsible for hers?
The production is particularly compelling in its exploration of the contradictions of motherhood. Jo is exhausted, resentful and desperately in love with her children. These feelings do not cancel each other out. They coexist, sometimes within the same breath.
In one of the show’s most affecting recollections, she describes being asked whether she wanted to hold her newborn. She does, of course she does. But beneath that love lies a desperate desire to be held herself.
She has given her body, her strength, her very breath to bringing another life into the world. And somehow, even now, there is nowhere for her own exhaustion to rest. There is tenderness here, but also an aching loneliness.
And then, almost as quickly as the feeling arrives, the comedy returns. This is where The Manager Is Me occasionally works against itself. The performance embraces heightened physicality, rapid transitions and broad humour. Much of it is entertaining, and the exaggeration feels appropriate to a life in which even the smallest inconvenience can become an Olympic event. Yet in its determination to keep the audience entertained, the production sometimes rushes past its own most affecting moments.
The humour is welcome, but not every silence needs rescuing with a punchline.
Some of the production’s strongest moments are its quietest. A brief tenderness between mother and child. The weight of an unspoken disappointment. A woman momentarily unable to perform the version of herself everyone has come to expect.
I found myself wishing the production would stay there a little longer. A more measured rhythm, and greater confidence in the scenes where the noise falls away, might allow the work’s emotional complexity to emerge more fully. These moments have earned their place. They just need room to breathe.
The show’s treatment of Jo’s marriage is similarly compelling, particularly in its refusal to make her frustration incompatible with love. Her husband is unwell, and her care for him is genuine. But his more recent illness does not erase the years in which she was already carrying too much.
“I was drowning then too.”
There is an entire history inside those five words. The tragedy is not simply that Jo needs help now. It’s that her exhaustion only becomes visible when circumstances make it impossible to ignore.
Beyond the household, the production also confronts the impossible standards women are expected to meet. Be a devoted mother, a desirable partner, a reliable friend, financially responsible, emotionally available and, while you’re at it, don’t forget to look after yourself, eat 30g of protein for breakfast and never, ever look your age. Even self-care becomes another item on the list.
There is something particularly cruel about demanding that women manage their own wellbeing while denying them the time and support to do so. We expect them to carry the weight of entire households, then scrutinise the ways they have learned to survive beneath it. Apparently, even exhaustion must be handled gracefully.
Still, there is genuine warmth at the production’s centre. Jo’s love for her children is never in doubt, nor is the grief she feels for the parts of herself that motherhood has pushed aside.
“I wanna make something. Something that isn’t lunch.”
It’s a small wish, almost laughably modest. Yet it speaks to something enormous: the desire to create, to exist, to be a person whose purpose extends beyond meeting somebody else’s needs. To feel at home in your own body again, rather than becoming a home for everyone else, one you barely recognise anymore.
The Manager Is Me is an affectionate, painfully recognisable portrait of a woman carrying more than anyone should have to. Its humour is generous, its observations often sharp, but its most affecting moments deserve more room to breathe. There is a stronger production waiting in those silences, one that trusts its audience to sit with the discomfort rather than laugh its way out of it.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing a woman can do is stop performing. And sometimes the most powerful thing a stage can do is let her.
Recommended drink: An Aperol Spritz, at least we can pretend we’re on holiday, right?
You can catch The Manager is Me at the The Salon in the Motley Wherehaus until the 17th of October at 3pm and 6pm. Tickets are available to book through the Melbourne Finge Website.
Shay Mace
