A Nightime Travesty
There are no safety rails for A Nightime Travesty, no discernible logic, only the thrill of what could possibly happen next. The latest provocation from theatre collective A Daylight Connection, this absurdist vaudeville is a reckless, exhilarating descent into the wreckage of colonialism, late-stage capitalism, the patriarchy and wanton environmental destruction.
Returning to Melbourne after a triumphant premiere at Yirramboi Festival, the show lands as part of Asia TOPA – and it's a literal fever dream that feels like the logical successor to Brecht and the most deranged episodes of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
Co-created and performed by Kamarra Bell-Wykes and Carly Sheppard, A Nightime Travesty operates at the precipice of satire and existential dread. Sheppard’s Angel, an Indigenous Australian flight attendant aboard the Last Fleet, must survive a dubious spacecraft evacuating even more dubious clientele from an Earth now in smouldering ruin. It’s a post-colonial allegory with a phallocentric captain, a lecherous AI co-worker and an on-board infotainment system broadcasting Hey Hey It’s Judgement Day. There are bureaucratic nightmares, some decapitation and a dildo bike. The final reckoning? God, of course. And the eternal question: “Can the last Aboriginal alive defeat the most powerful incarnation of colonial evil?”
It’s a lot, and that’s probably the point. Stephen Nicolazzo directs this chaos with a careful sleight of hand, ensuring that even the most audacious...