Anna X review | Red Stitch

Few real-life figures have captured the public imagination quite like Anna Delvey. The Russian-born con artist, whose deception of New York's wealthy elite became a global media sensation, blurred the line between ambition, performance and fraud. Her story raises intriguing questions about status, privilege and society's willingness to believe those who appear successful, making her an ideal subject for theatre.

Joseph Charlton's Anna X takes inspiration from Delvey's rise and fall, using her notoriety as a lens through which to examine identity, aspiration and the allure of reinvention. Centred on a fictitious relationship with app developer and tech CEO Arial, the play explores success in an age where image and influence can be as valuable as truth, though its focus occasionally drifts from its most compelling figure.

It's hard to believe that Becca Galvin is making her professional stage debut in the role of Anna. She inhabits the persona like a second skin, nailing the deliberately difficult-to-place accent with its unusual rhythms and inflections. During her scenes with Arial, there's an impenetrable glaze over her face. You can never tell what she's thinking, what she's feeling, or when she's lying. Only when she sneaks a smirk or a wink towards the audience, or when she's left alone on stage, do we catch glimpses of the woman beneath the performance.

Stokes is equally impressive as Arial, even as the character becomes increasingly less interesting as the story progresses. Despite the play's efforts to balance their stories, the audience's attention remains firmly fixed on Anna. As a result, the second act's emphasis on Arial's dating app and the fallout from a technical glitch struggles to generate much dramatic tension. There's also a strange shift in the character going from an ambitious tech-bro facade in the first half to a more sympathetic, lovesick man in the second. It is at odds with the rest of the story, but Stokes' committed portrayal makes Arial far more engaging and endearing than the script permits.

Louisa Fitzgerald's set design effectively reflects Anna's interest in the arts and her ambitions for her Foundation. Plinths and cubes of varying sizes are rearranged on stage to establish place in a visually striking and distinctly artistic manner. Each column features a different print, rotated to suit the needs of each scene and establishing a range of environments from a relatively simple design.

Viewed another way, these shifting pieces almost mirror Anna herself. Just as the set is repeatedly reconfigured into new forms, the audience is continually presented with several versions of Anna, each revealing only part of the whole. Like those scattered props, she is frustratingly difficult to fully assemble or understand.

Tait de Lorenzo's direction gives Anna X a fluidity that complements its themes of reinvention and performance. The actors are rarely still, walking with deliberate purpose, circling one another or moving plinths and cubes into a variety of locations. It allows the show to feel constantly in motion, reflecting the instability of the identities that Anna, and to a lesser extent Arial, have constructed for themselves.

For all its shortcomings, Anna X understands one crucial aspect of its subject: Anna's greatest trick was never convincing people she was wealthy, but convincing them she was worth paying attention to. Years after her crimes came to light, she continues to be an object of fascination, and this production is at its strongest when it leans into that uncomfortable truth.

SHOW DETAILS



Venue: Red Stitch, 2 Chapel St, St. Kilda East

Season: until 21 June | Tues - Wed 6:30pm, Thur - Sat 7:30pm, Sun 6:30pm
Duration: 110 minutes, including 20 min interval

Tickets: $69 Full | $48 Concession | $35 Student/Under 30s
Bookings: Red Stitch

Image credit: Chris Parker