This week they take the stage again to play another warring couple in Leonard Bernstein’s two-hander, Trouble in Tahiti.

The one-act opera tells the bleak tale of Sam and Dinah, locked in a loveless marriage with no way out, set to a characteristically jazz-inflected Bernstein score.

Paired with Arlecchino, a one-act opera by Ferruccio Busoni, Trouble in Tahiti is being staged at Darlinghurst’s Eternity Playhouse by Endangered Productions.

“It does leave you a little depressed at the end because they are wanting to get together but they can’t,” Barker says. “But there’s some great music. It’s worth it just for the music.”

Barker and Coleman-Wright first played opposite each other aged just 14 in a production of The Boy Friend at Geelong’s Belmont High School.

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“It’s almost like we planned to meet each other from a past life or something,” says Coleman-Wright. “Our souls just absolutely had to be together. We fight and people would say, ‘They won’t last five minutes’ and we still soldier on somehow.”

Barker says that being in the same demanding industry has been a boon to their relationship.

“I think that’s why we survived, really,” she says. “We understand how difficult it is.”

Both look back on their long careers with fondness.

“We were really lucky that we were able to go from job to job to job,” says Coleman-Wright. “Whereas these days you might get a job and then six months later here’s another one. Consequently, you can’t stay match fit. You can’t keep yourself on top form.”

So, after a torrid night on stage that might even involve the occasional stabbing, how hard is it to go home and wind down?

“Well, we’re usually starving,” says Coleman-Wright. “You don’t tend to eat before a show, so we’d crack open the wine and Vegemite and toast.”

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