There's nothing quite like a night at the theatre. Last week, RUSSH assembled guests from within our creative minds community for an evening at Sydney's Walsh Bay beginning with an intimate sunset dinner, followed by a a performance of The Sydney Theatre Company's The Talented Mr. Ripley,  adapted for stage by Joanna Murray-Smith and directed by award winning Australian theatre director, Sarah Goodes.

The evening began at that perfect moment before the sun set over the Sydney Harbour, and guests were greeted on arrival by oysters, beef empanadas, and a special Mr. Ripley-themed martini made with Archie Rose gin. It was sharp and elegant — perfectly foreshadowing what was to occur on stage later that evening.

Dinner was served at the newly reimagined Wharf Restaurant and Bar, nestled on the water’s edge at the Sydney Theatre Company. Housed in a heritage-listed wharf at Walsh Bay, once part of Sydney’s cargo port and now a thriving arts precinct. The Sydney Theatre Company has been one of Australia’s most celebrated theatre companies since 1979. The evening’s menu was an exclusive first taste of the Wharf’s new offering — featured mafaldine pasta with pork and fennel sausage, chicken with nduja butter, and swordfish fresh from Mooloolaba, all paired with Robert Oatley wines.

After dinner, it was a short walk to the Roslyn Packer Theatre, where the easy glow of the meal gave way to a much darker performance. Goodes’s direction pulled us straight into a world that was sleek and seductive, but never safe. There was style in the lines, the staging, the silences, and throughout, yet beneath it all ran a steady current of unease.

On stage, Will McDonald’s Tom Ripley was magnetic and unsettling, always one step ahead of both his cast mates and the audiences, cunningly reinventing himself moment by moment. Raj Labade’s Dickie Greenleaf carried that enigmatic carefree charm, and Claude Scott-Mitchell as Marge, was the observer who seemed to understand, before anyone else, that charm can curdle into something more dangerous.

The production left us suspended between glamour and dread, both dazzled and uneasy. And just as it does on stage, Ripley’s shadow lingered long after the night came to an end.

It was an evening where life, art and taste folded neatly into one another, with the ease of shared food, a gripping story, and the picturesque backdrop of Sydney's harbour.