Seed hunters
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https://www.scenetheatresydney.net.au/seed-hunters
Date Reviewed: 17/10/2025
There’s something deliciously ironic about Seed Hunters taking root inside Sydney Uniting Church, a space built for salvation, now hosting a story about women reinventing it.
Directed by Melissa Paris and performed by a passionate ensemble of eleven, this production doesn’t whisper its provocation; it plants it squarely in the soil of modern gender politics and dares it to grow. At first glance, the premise feels whimsical, even outrageous: a global network of women on a genetic mission to re-engineer humanity by selecting “non-toxic” men to father their children. But underneath the wackiness lies a deeply serious pulse, a reflection of collective exhaustion with cycles of harm and the age-old question of what survival demands of women. It’s part satire, part social experiment, and it knows exactly how absurd its own premise sounds. There is humour and heart, moments of farce spiral into quiet vulnerability.
We meet Bob, a young Australian lost in 1970s Beijing, entangled with a charismatic Argentine seed hunter who alters his life story.
Decades later, in 2025, Bob’s nieces mirror his story, ambitious, messy, and idealistic, as they seek empowerment in an age that still cages it. The narrative folds generations into one another like layers of sediment, each grappling with legacy and liberation. A simple sketch pad signals the shift between times and settings, a small but effective device that keeps the story grounded while ideas take flight.
The performances anchor the concept, and fumbles make it endearing that it's opening night. There’s warmth in the ensemble’s chemistry, particularly from the actor playing Dorothy (Joan Rodd), the matriarch whose calm authority cuts through the chaos with generational grace.
The production’s intimacy draws the audience in, transforming the church’s quiet reverence into a shared act of reflection on how we love, reproduce, and resist. Not every beat lands; the shifts between earnestness and satire occasionally jar. Yet even in its unevenness, Seed Hunters invites conversation and connection.
Radical ideas are often what shifts the dial, and if, as Dorothy reminds us, seed hunting isn’t the answer, then perhaps the message is simpler: make the world a happier place by focusing on one thing at a time.
What is the one thing you might walk away with?