“My Brilliant Career” is the latest of Marsten’s literary adaptations for the ballet stage. Miles Franklin’s cherished novel from 1901 tells the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a young Australian woman torn between her quiet rural family home and the new world glamour of her grandmother’s estate. Not only is this the first Marston ballet staged by an Australian company, but the piece was also commissioned for and created on the Queensland Ballet dancers (and considering Marston’s skyrocketing reputation, this is a justified coup). 

Marston’s choreography was poetry in motion—“My Brilliant Career” is one of the best new works Queensland Ballet has staged to date. She leant into the complexities of the story and made some brilliant dramaturgical decisions. The most astonishing one being the fracturing of the main character. There is a duality to Sybylla, one that Marston explicitly encouraged. Sybylla doesn’t know whether to lean into the new expectations and male attention placed upon her, or to rebel against it and return home. Instead of confining these emotions to one body, Marston split Sybylla into two. Mia Heathcote was Syb; the version that wanted to embrace the romantic and sophisticated ideals her new life offered, while Laura Tosar was Bylla; the one that questioned this change and resisted efforts to control her. Together, the women showed the full capacity of Sybylla’s character. They were two parts of one whole—a beautiful collaboration.