Markets 
SECOND COMING ★★★
Roundhouse Theatre (La Boite), until August 22
The success of the recent Ryan Gosling movie Project Hail Mary isn’t hard to fathom given it portrays an interplanetary mission to save humanity that is secular, government-run and managed by smart and ethical people.
Now we have Second Coming by Brisbane playwright Kathryn Marquet, a play that shows how a similar mission might unfold if bankrolled by corporate interests.
In one of those hideous coincidences the universe seems to enjoy, the theatre it’s playing in is located on Musk Avenue.
Earth is dying and the Ark Mark II is on its way to Mars, the “New Eden”, with a cargo of embryonic animals on the verge of extinction. Our heroine is Evie (Ashlee Lollback), a Nobel Prize-winning geneticist who is starting to have doubts about her quest and her crewmates.
The Genesis mission’s captain, Zara (Merlynn Tong), is a Bible-bashing authoritarian quick with rictus smiles for the cameras. Horticulturalist Noah (Gideon Mzembe) is a reality TV star more concerned with his social media following than the ship’s greenhouses. And Evie’s geologist boyfriend Alan (Anthony Standish) spends his time playing virtual reality games and pestering her for sex.
The multinational crew is supplemented by a computerised assistant, AIDA (voiced by Elise Grieg), who hectors them with moralistic aphorisms. There’s also a guinea pig called Snowy who may or may not play an important part in the plot.
The set-up will be familiar to fans of the old lost-in-space sitcom Red Dwarf but while the farcical tone is similar, the laughs are much darker and closer to home.
The ship’s trillionaire owner, Zane Brookbank (Darren Gilshenan in a recorded performance), frequently dials in from the rapidly collapsing Earth to read the crew their morning prayer and remind them of their mission, which – besides delivering animals to the biodomes of Mars – is to market tacky products to the viewers watching at home.
Second Coming is the third in a trilogy of comedies by Marquet, a writer with a dim view of humanity’s prospects, after Pale Blue Dot (2014) and The Dead Devils of Cockles Creek (2018). All three have been developed by Playlab Theatre and staged at La Boite; Playlab artistic director Ian Lawson is the director here.
If you’ve been to La Boite lately you’ll know that jokey science fiction and horror tales that hold a black mirror up to the warming, capitalist world have become a staple.
As the ship nears Mars it becomes clear that we’re watching a microcosm of the planet they’re leaving behind: Evie the lone, disempowered scientific mind in a world of influencers, game nerds and brainwashed proto-fascists.
I did enjoy the high-tech set design and lighting by Bill Haycock and Geoff Squires respectively, and Lawson integrates the performances on screens with the live action convincingly. Helen Howard gives a moving turn in the small role of Evie’s on-screen mother.
This year SpaceX has announced its intentions to colonise the moon instead of Mars, a gradation of madness that the world seems to have accepted with a narcoleptic shrug.
At least instead of simply telling us we’re all doomed, Second Coming explains pretty clearly how and why we’re all doomed. And in doing so, it even offers a glimmer of hope.
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Nick Dent is a Culture Reporter at Brisbane Times, covering arts, entertainment and things to do in the city.Connect via email.From our partners
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