I was thinking about how I should describe the latest La Boite and Dead Puppet Society collaboration when I came up with the perfect word. Shambolic.
That word is a bit of a double-edged sword, though. It can be good and bad. And, in fact, the play We’re All Gonna Die! is both.
It’s a new work by Maddie Nixon, who was commissioned by Dead Puppet Society to create a script for a bold new monster story – and this is it.
Dead Puppet Society creative director David Morton co-directs this production alongside La Boite’s artistic director Courtney Stewart.
I imagine this collaboration was a lot of fun because, despite the rawness of the piece (it’s new and could do with some editing and cutting), it is fun. As Morton has said: “The joy of the work is its ridiculousness.” I concur.
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It’s a play that echoes Moby Dick, Godzilla and even John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes, a favourite boyhood book of mine.
rubbish has its revenge & breeds a monster that attacks Brisbane & has the cast expecting … they’re all going to die!
Which should give you the hint that it’s about a monster from the sea. In Godzilla, the monster is unleashed after nuclear devastation (and that is rather metaphorical).
In this play the monster is unleashed by our neglect of the environment in the face of climate change and our sin of dumping rubbish in the sea. Ah, but the rubbish has its revenge and breeds a monster that attacks Brisbane and has the cast expecting that, yes, they are all going to die! Do they? Well, I can’t tell you that, can I?
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It stars Louise Brehmer in two roles as mum Lana and a teacher. Milena Nesic is the intrepid schoolgirl Theo and there’s Ngoc Phan in a couple of roles. Anthony Standish also plays a couple of roles and Hsiao-Ling Tang completes the cast.
They all seem to be having way too much fun along the way and there are jokes aplenty at the expense of Brisbane and all of us. I did enjoy the piss-take on militant Brisbane cyclists. You know who you are.
It has an amazing backdrop of Brisbane City looking funkier than it ever has.
Dean Hanson of award-winning indie band Ball Park Music composed and curated the play’s distinctly Brisbane soundtrack. The eclectic playlist includes The Go-between’s’ seminal Streets of Your Town before combing the catalogues of local legends such as Powderfinger, Regurgitator, Custard, The Saints, Violent Soho and The Veronicas.
The Dead Puppet Society’s signature is all over it visually and thematically. Their monster is more funny than scary, but I guess that’s the point. It’s a B-grade monster movie on stage.
DPS has a long history of working with La Boite. One of the company’s earliest works, The Harbinger, was at La Boite in 2011 and 2012 and in 2017 they had a huge hit with Laser Beak Man, a musical odyssey featuring Dean Hanson in the on-stage band.
Good to see DPS and Hanson back at La Boite where new works often take shape and plays always start 20 minutes later than they are supposed to. Just saying.
We’re All Gonna Die! plays The Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, until August 16.