Review: "Doing a Bradbury" Has Some Devilish Fun with an Australian Folk Hero

Doing a Bradbury

Written by Annabel McConnachie

Directed by Zoé Zifer

Presented at The Tank

312 West 36th Street, Manhattan, NYC

November 14, 2025

 Annabel McConnachie. Photo by Callee Egan (@calwithcamera)
It's just a statistical fact that most athletes who compete in the Olympic Games will be losers, setting up a tension between the achievement of making it to such an elite level and what could be seen as the failure of not medaling. A similar situation exists in any sports championship, but the personal investment demanded of many Olympic athletes (NBA players aren't generally working day jobs and spending their own money on training to get to the finals) and the lack of tangible rewards even for most of the winners, including the underdogs that audiences profess to love, can only intensify any such tension. A fascinating embodiment of this collision among different varieties of success and failure, Australian speedskater Steven Bradbury provides the subject of Doing a Bradbury, the new play from New York-based writer-performer Annabel McConnachie, herself a native Australian. Imagining a Faustian angle to Bradbury's real-life exploits, the lean, funny Doing a Bradbury had a staged reading at The Tank this November in advance of its upcoming premiere at the Carclew Lounge from March 4-8, 2026, as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Tim Hotchkin and Annabel McConnachie. Photo by Callee Egan (@calwithcamera)
The play opens with an anxious Bradbury (Annabel McConnachie) talking to his mother (Isabel Vann, who handles this and several other offstage voices, including the announcer once the race begins) on the phone before a 2002 race. Once the race kicked off, McConnachie executed, like Amy Werbeloff would do after her, some faux speedskating that looked impressively on-form while also, due to the absence of, well, ice, being pretty funny. As part of a running commentary on the announcer's calling of the race, Bradbury, at the back of the pack, jokingly mentions Satanic intervention, which has more of an effect than he probably expected, summoning Lucifer himself (Tim Hotchkin), who insists later that that particular name is no longer part of his branding. As Bradbury converses with this demonic arrival, we flash back to 1994, one stop on his long, obstacle-filled road to success, albeit under unusual circumstances. Here, as during other flashbacks–which the lighting designed and operated by stage-manager Chelsea Castro helped to track during the reading–Bradbury skating (or falling, or being injured) was mimed by Werbeloff while McConnachie narrated as the same character, an effective device that gives some of the feeling of a sports replay. Bradbury emphasizes his hard work over these years, but in one exchange that highlights the sort of pressure that he has faced and continues to face, his mother firmly suggests that he might have reached an age (the advanced years, in the athletic world, of 28) when it would be prudent to finally give up on his dream. The Devil being involved, some offers are made as the play progresses, during which the question of the source of Bradbury's repeated setbacks also comes up and Bradbury hashes out some important matters with former teammate Andrew Murtha (Amy Werbeloff)–all ultimately leaving Bradbury to make a choice about how much he would give up to achieve his dream.
Annabel McConnachie and Amy Werbeloff. Photo by Callee Egan (@calwithcamera)
The meeting between Bradbury and Murtha underscores that even small actions or remarks or actions can have rippling consequences and pushes issues of forgiveness to the foreground. Additionally, as the play unfolds, it establishes some parallels between Bradbury and his Mephistophelian tempter. Its version of hell involves lengthy legalistic contracts, supervisors, and quotas, and the Devil, in an echo of Bradbury's struggles, complains of missed goals and burnout. Vann was particularly funny in one scene as a sort of satanic customer service phone rep who talks to Bradbury, as she was in a scene with the Devil in which Hotchkin hilariously brought out the rebellious emo teen personality beneath the smooth if harried businessman. (Elsewhere, he delivered an excellent extended joke about hell being modeled on Australia.) The Devil's unshakeable commitment to forging his own path, though, again echoes Bradbury himself. As Bradbury, McConnachie brought humor and relatability to the inner struggles of a man the facts of whose life would stretch credulity were he a fictional character. As it skates towards its fully staged premiere, Doing a Bradbury needs neither unbelievable luck nor malign intervention to succeed.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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