# Em Rusciano: Addicted To Love **Review** — On Your Markus **Rating:** 5 out of 5 **Event:** Em Rusciano: Addicted To Love **Performance date:** Friday 5 June 2026 **Venue:** Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre **Published:** 5 June 2026 **Author:** Markus Hamence **Source:** https://onyourmarkus.au/reviews/em-rusciano-addicted-to-love/ --- *Review by ****[Markus Hamence](/markus-hamence/)****** ****–**** Em Rusciano: Addicted To Love****. Performance date: Friday 05 June 2026. Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, South Australia*. ![](https://media.onyourmarkus.au/originals/43378/sfx358787.jpg) **Em Rusciano** has never been one to colour inside the lines, and in *Addicted to Love*, she tears the whole colouring book to shreds. Making its Adelaide premiere as part of the 2026 **Adelaide Cabaret Festival**, this deeply personal, wildly funny and fiercely honest show finds Rusciano at a crossroads, examining the stories we tell ourselves about love, relationships, sex, identity and what happens when the life you’ve carefully built suddenly no longer fits. Fresh from a 25 year relationshit break-up, Em Rusciano was ready to share. Part cabaret, part comedy confessional and part emotional exorcism, *Addicted to Love* is powered by Rusciano’s remarkable ability to make a theatre full of strangers feel like old friends. One moment the audience is roaring with laughter at her brutally candid observations, the next they’re sitting in reflective silence as she unpacks heartbreak, reinvention and the uncomfortable beauty of starting over. Her vulnerability is fearless, but it is her authenticity that makes every story land with such force. She cries, she cracks herself up, she makes her dad shake his head (a band member), she tackles whether certain stories should be told, she openly discusses the emotions of the day leading up to the evening’s performance, she gave us her 100% all, and most importantly, all while loving and choosing herself, finally. > “Em Rusciano turns heartbreak, humour and fucking hard truths into one of the most honest and entertaining nights of this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival all in her own brash, bold and inimitable way” > > Markus Hamence Musically, the show delivers exactly what audiences have come to expect from Rusciano – powerhouse vocals, razor-sharp timing and a stage presence that effortlessly fills every corner of the Dunstan Playhouse. Backed by longtime collaborator Ezekiel Fenn, the performance moves seamlessly between original material, familiar favourites and deeply personal storytelling, creating a cabaret experience that feels both intimate and larger than life. Opening with the belter from Pat Benatar ‘Love Is A Battefield’, Rusciano effortlessly weaves through the show dropping truth bombs that part shock and mortify and part show us how ‘real’ she is and it is that in which allows us to connect with her so easily. Throw in a brilliant mash-up of Alanis’ ‘You Oughta Know’ and Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’, a beautiful new song from an upcoming self penned musical and a re-worked ‘Addicted To Love’ and the show served as almost a self discovery, self love therapy session for anyone who needed it. What makes *Addicted to Love* so compelling is that it isn’t really about romantic love at all. It is about the many things we become attached to – approval, validation, certainty, expectations – and the liberation that comes when we finally let them go. Rusciano examines these ideas with humour, heart and a refreshing absence of self-pity, transforming personal upheaval into a celebration of resilience and self-discovery… …Between Alessandro (The chosen go-to audience member for the evening), the lesbian stage hands, broken glasses, red flags, the off-script chaos, the vocally beautiful and raw musical numbers, what was most apparent is that Rusciano is an exceptional story-teller that brings you into her embracing world. > “*Addicted to Love* is cabaret with its twisted and knarled heart cracked wide open – funny, fearless and gosh darn impossible to look away from.” > > Markus Hamence In a festival packed with glamour, spectacle and larger-than-life personalities, *Addicted to Love* stands out because of its raw humanity. It is messy, hilarious, emotional and unapologetically real. Em Rusciano doesn’t offer easy answers, but she does offer connection – and by the final curtain, that proves to be more powerful than any fairy-tale ending. Wrapping it up: With a flower ladden, red microphone in one hand and her torn about heart in the other, Em Rusciano delivers a cabaret experience that is as courageous as it is captivating, leaving audiences laughing, reflecting and cheering for every imperfect, beautiful moment. Get addicted. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 5 out of 5. **[Follow Em Rusciano online](https://emrusciano.com/)** ![](https://media.onyourmarkus.au/repaired/9b100de6-ba00-4679-8119-bc93bc050cf2/IMG_8316.jpg) ![](https://media.onyourmarkus.au/originals/43379/sfx358788-1-722x1024-1.jpg)