The Lucky Country is billed as “a new Aussie musical for all Aussies”, but with no book or clear connecting narrative, a song cycle is a better description.

Featuring music and lyrics by Vidya Makan, written in collaboration with Sonya Suares, who also directs, the show explores identity and belonging in Australia, upending our traditional mythmaking by putting people who are generally marginalised front and centre.

The cast of The Lucky Country, Hayes Theatre Co, 2023. Photo © Philip Erbacher

Named after Donald Horne’s 1964 book, The Lucky Country unfolds over 13 vignettes, each with a song, which explore themes including the framing of Australian history, racism, cultural appropriation and violence against women.

It begins with Boy, a 13-year-old Thitharr Warra boy, played by Joseph Althouse, who is inspired by First Nations rapper Baker Boy, but whose optimism is undercut by his Australian history lessons at school.

From there, we meet a series of characters including a young Chinese-Australian man who has inherited his family’s restaurant but dreams of a more laid-back life in Byron Bay; a young refugee in Mingoola learning how to grow a garden; two men who claim...