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It’s only April, but the most profound love story on a Sydney stage this year may just be the soulmate-friendship between Isla and Violet in Sistren. The debut play by writer and star Iolanthe has made a triumphant return to Griffin Theatre Co after a smash-hit run in its 2025 independent artist program, Lookout.

We meet Isla (Iolanthe) and Violet (Janet Anderson) at their South London high school, where they’ve been summoned to the headmaster’s office. It’s clear, very quickly, that this is not a new occurrence – the man has a low tolerance for the pair’s so-called “political correctness” and seems personally outraged by their joy. It’s clear, just as quickly, that the joy they find with and create for each other is imperative to their survival as a Black girl and a trans girl against a world full of stares, comments, assumptions and bigotry.

The headmaster dubs them a “lethal combination” (they immediately consider it as a potential name for a future girl group) and suspends them over a spontaneous rant Isla has made against anti-pesticides in food technology. Even worse: he orders that the two be separated at school for the rest of the year, and says he’ll be in touch with their families to enforce it beyond school hours.

The bulk of Sistren takes place in their final hours together, with the pair holed up in a neglected classroom with faulty smoke alarms (where Violet can glamorously smoke a cigarette in peace). It’s where they go to feel safe and to be together. As announcements over the loudspeaker count down to the building’s closure – and what could be the end of their friendship – Isla and Violet’s bond will have to respond to stressors and strain, both external and internal, to keep itself alive.

Iolanthe’s play is a firework: propulsive, explosive, glittery and triumphant. It’s a stylish and stylised piece that privileges and prioritises the inner worlds of these two young women, giving their experiences, feelings and interests the depth and respect they deserve. They speak to each other in a pop-culture shorthand of shared references, quotes and memes – did you know the hottest form of dissociation is doing a pitch-perfect double-act rendition of an iconic Celebrity Big Brother soundbite? – all deployed, like the songs in a musical, to express their heightened feelings.

It’s a party but it’s also powered by a clear and engaging emotional arc, which director Ian Michael guides us through with care and – when it’s most needed – a twinkle in the eye. Iolanthe, too, makes sure we get a show – in the first five minutes there’s an Elaine Stritch lip-sync and pink confetti. There’s music. There’s dancing. There’s a lot of chat – between Isla and Violet, but also for us, the audience, who are frequently addressed and invited, conspiratorially, into some good gossip. These asides also allow for crucial worldbuilding, delivered swiftly so we can spend more time in the heart of things – which is to say, within the hearts of Isla and Violet.

Even the set lives inside their feelings. Designed by Emma White, it’s a classroom absolutely covered in fluffy pink material; it lines the desks, the old-school clock on the wall, and borders the screen where projections by TK Abioye flash internet evidence and key images for emphasis. It’s a fantasia of softer edges, a filter of femininity, like the music-video school uniforms the pair wear – just yassified enough to be past the point of reality, and to signal to us that Isla and Violet’s shared inner world takes precedence here, even in all its daydream-positive sheen and playful exaggeration. After all, positive thinking can get you through a lot.

As the pair talk and argue and untangle the messy links between queer culture and appropriated Black culture, between gender-affirming acts of cosmetic beauty and anti-feminist acts of performing cosmetic beauty for the male gaze, between personal intimacies and gaps in cultural understanding, the play brings us deeper into the agonies and ecstasies of defining, growing and fighting for sisterhood.

Sistren is ferocious, funny and remarkably tender, as are Iolanthe and Anderson. Their comic timing is devilish, their hearts are open to their audience, and when Isla and Violet begin to get vulnerable with each other, Iolanthe and Anderson are fully, heart-achingly present for each other and for all of us. You’ll fall in love with their love.

• Sistren is on at Belvoir’s Downstairs Theatre, Sydney until 3 May