What would you do if you had one hour to live?
In Perseverance Street Theatre’s latest production, It’s the End of the World, a talented ensemble of young Gympie actors answer that question through music, movement and raw storytelling.
Twelve artists aged 15–22 undertook an intensive creative process under the direction of rising star, 21-year old Fletcher Colfs, who recently won the Matilda Award for Best New Acting Talent in Queensland.
While the end of the world is the show’s premise, the themes are grounded in the present: including class inequality, environmental instability, mental health, grief and collective uncertainty.
IMAGE of Riley Hotham supplied
Musical Director, Sarah Harvey, worked closely with the cast, shaping the show’s vocal and musical elements and ensuring the production is as musically compelling as it is emotionally confronting.
Harvey’s influence shows. The show opens with the cast mournfully singing The World is Ending in perfect harmonies, setting the elegiac tone for this story of young people pre-grieving the end of the world (presumably through the obvious forces of climate change and geopolitical insecurity).
L to R: Seth White, Fletcher Colfs, Lachlan Stevens, Miranda Robb, Rowan Lanzon. IMAGE Dylan Curtis
There are last supper scenes, but not as we know them.
A witty meditation scene starts with the usual calming breathwork before escalating into a guided visualisation on strangling and burying troubling thoughts about the coming catastrophe. The instructor cleverly builds pace as the exercise changes from lovely, calm meditation to an increasingly shrill, desperate call to embrace mindlessness as the only way to cope with what’s coming. It’s a timely satirical comment on the well-being movement’s tendency to block their ears and say ‘La la la’ instead of paying attention to what’s actually happening in the world.
Mackenzie Knickel guides meditators to bury their fears. IMAGE: Dylan Curtis
The End of the World story is infused with justified despondency but it’s written and performed by young people, so hope keeps bursting through like weeds that won’t die no matter how much poison you spray on them.
A zombie dance scene is kinda cool and fun. The ensemble’s interpretation of The Wine Song is a frenetic drinking binge perhaps designed to drown out the fear of ‘bushfires that rage and rage’. It’s less cool and fun and more desperate and dangerous.
Overall, the bacchanalia in The End of the World is reminiscent of the desperate fun creative, progressive Germans were having in pre-war Berlin, complete with exquisite cabaret solos gently and skillfully interpreted by the singers.
The full cast are: Fletcher Colfs, Riley Hotham, Emily Jackson, Nixon Keable, Ariella Kilpatrick, Mackenzie Knickle, Rowan Lanzon, Emily Monk, Miranda Robb, Lachlan Stevens, Rayner Thomas and Seth White. Sound design Alex Harvey.
The End of the World is partly like a funeral for hope and partly a recognition that hope never dies, even at ten seconds to midnight.
IMAGE of Emily Jackson by Dylan Curtis
The show runs Wed to Sat nights till 28 March at the Perseverance Street Theatre Company Studio, Barter Street, Gympie. Recommended for mature audiences aged 15 years and above. Tickets $28 at Humanitix
IMAGE of Nixon Keable (singing) at top of story by Dylan Curtis
