Featured in: The Age’s Top 10 Theatre Shows of 2017, Time Out’s Best of Sydney Theatre 2017, The Music’s Best of Theatre 2017, Kevin Jackson’s 2017 Sydney Theatre Year in Review (Australian Writing, Direction, Performer- Jennifer Vuletic), and Sometimes Melbourne’s What I Loved Yearly Review.

★★★★★ “This is powerful, confronting and sublime theatre, a howl of anguish from those lost to the cracks and demanding to be heard” Kate Rose, Herald Sun.

★★★★★ “Nothing can prepare you for this level of awesomeness, it is the very best independently produced local theatre we have seen so far this year. This work is important and will be spoken about for some time to come”
Jessi Lewis, TAGG

★★★★½ “Breathtaking and shattering… Director Stephen Nicolazzo continues to cement his reputation as one of Melbourne’s – and dare I say, Australia’s – most dynamic and creatively assured theatre makers…every gesture of this production finds a hard-won, supremely accomplished equilibrium between the beautiful and the barbaric ”
Maxim Boon, The Music.

★★★★½ “A striking and fearless affair… Sharp staging, evocative direction, a powerhouse script, and a troupe of performers all at the top of their game…this is provocative contemporary theatre at its best”
The Lowdown Under

★★★★ “Queer theatre outfit Little Ones is a leading light on Melbourne’s indie scene.  In adapting Christos Tsiolkas’ short story collection Merciless Gods, they break new theatrical ground. Compelling, confronting theatre.”
Cameron Woodhead, The Age.

★★★★ “This is an outsider play made by outsiders, and it’s this lived-experience advantage that gives the work its complex and rewarding layers: brutal, tender, and unsentimentally queer. It demands your attention”
Cassie Tongue, The Guardian.

★★★★ “Nicolazzo and Giovannoni tell these stories with great taste and restraint, and the potential discomfort is usually displaced by surprising feelings of empathy and compassion for the enormous suffering of those on stage.”
Ben Neutze, Daily Review.

★★★★ “There is no weak link in this cast. Stephen Nicolazzo’s direction cuts the right frame. The atmosphere becomes thick in the tiny Griffin Theatre, helping to fill the space with scents of Tsiolkas’ writing – smoke, sex and shit.”
Sophie Gillfeather-Spetere, Arts Hub (Sydney)

★★★★ “The stories are darkly fascinating, repellant but irresistible. An experience that will leave you shattered, but reflective.”
Sam Baran, The Music (Sydney)

“Giovannoni’s script lets us into the hearts and heads of Tsiolkas’ characters. Its easy to connect with lovely people; its confronting to connect with- and easily laugh with- people who you’d never look at in the street or are happy to pretend don’t exist”
Anne-Marie Peard, Sometimes Melbourne

“Merciless Gods is confronting stuff. But those who fall under its dark spell will leave feeling elevated.”
Jason Blake, Sydney Morning Herald

“Merciless Gods is a harrowing, provocative, moving, funny, breathtaking night in the theatre. Little Ones Theatre is a company that resonates with excellence. Brilliant.”
Liddy Clarke, Stage Noise.

“A compellingly acted, emotionally vivid and atmospheric work, the eight tales delighted to rapturous applause”
Sarah W, The Plus Ones.

“The gender bending, queer Melbourne company has done great justice to the first adaptation of Tsiolkas’ 2014 collection of short stories, evoking beauty out of darkness and tenderness out of brutality. This play is a must see and deserves to be taken to the rest of Australia.”
Annika Priest, Australian Stage

“Visceral theatre, utterly alive”
Richard Watts, Triple RRR