From reading the All These Pretty Things flyer synopsis, I was expecting something quite loud, angry and vitriolic, set to music.
But Tracey Yarad is a far more experienced and nuanced storyteller than that, and it’s her skill at stopping at every station along her journey, which allows plenty of opportunities for the audience get on board the emotion, and empathetically feel each bump and turn.
In the very small ‘the box’ space, upstairs at the ARTHUR ARTHOUSE, the stripped back staging of one person lit on stage with a keyboard seems quite minimal. Fortunately Tracey fills the space with detailed imagery which she paints with words, and colours with songs. Her delivery and audience interaction feels accessible and conversational.
Her description of a chandelier while she stares at the centre of the ceiling almost makes us want to double check where she is looking, just to see whether there is an actual chandelier, because in the stillness of her storytelling, it feels that she is sure that she sees it there, and that draws her story into close proximity.
The interplay of sound cues also adds much incidental detail, and her even stopping everything to hear if a background airport gate announcement is for her flight, situates the audience right in that moment.
Within an hour there has been so much story build that it felt more like a tv series level build, than the more movie length, this gives the later betrayal and loss its stakes, having quantified and allowed us to feel what it is that was lost.
I feel that because the show is performed by the writer, we are seeing a version where the storytelling has been trimmed and evolved. There is no digression, every moment carefully builds.
In one scene Tracey shows us how she contorts her anger transforming it into a dance, in another she re-stages her songwriting process, showing us how she is attempting to compress the emotional words of her stories, finding ones that can fit with music through a kind of funnelling process into a song.
In this way she gently exemplifies how one can take the vulnerability of failures and indignities, and transform them by funnelling through an art form into something beautiful, real, and humanly resonant. Tracey has graduated to now live in New York, and the scale of that place has an ability to help you change your own scale.
Just like Alice in wonderland you can be both small and big there, which provides a meta context in which to reframe and get perspective on the size of your own self and narratives. This may have contributed to how Yarad is able to retell and relive this big story with such smallness emotional vulnerability and maturity. It must be quite therapeutic for her to perform.
Instead of having to go to New York to see this though, Tracey has brought it from New York to Australia. So i will ‘start spreading the news’, for you to go see it today. It’s up to you. Alright enough now with the Sinatra.
All These Pretty Things
The Box at ARTHUR ARTHOUSE, 66 Currie Street, Adelaide
Performance: Thursday 5 March 2026
Season continues to 10 March 2026
Bookings: www.adelaidefringe.com.au
Following the Adelaide season, All These Pretty Things will be presented at the Manning Entertainment Centre, Taree, on Friday 20 March 2026. For more information, visit: www.traceyyarad.com for details.
Image: Tracey Yarad stars in All These Pretty Things – photo by Perez Images
Review: Daniel McInnes