In Conversation with Corporare - Evan Task in Outer Space
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
In this week's backstage blog, we chat with Matthew Crosby (writer and performer), Tessa Marie Luminati (director) and Kasey Barratt (performer) from team Corporare - Evan Task in Outer Space - a gorgeously low horror sci-fi about a tech-bro and his rocket adrift in Martian dreams.
Q: Welcome to Theatre Works. How did you come to this the concept of this show come to you? What's happened to get it where it is now?
Matt: What with one thing and another, I found myself alone in The Thursday Group studio in North Melbourne for around a year. In my other life I teach Sustainability and I was researching corporate ‘negative externalities’ which is a euphemism for negligence. Disasters like the BP Texas City disaster… fatalities, injuries; BHP/Vale Mariana dam collapse, fatalities, injuries, river system dead, Tesla door lock malfunctions, passengers unable to escape fiery crashes. I looked at culpability and came across the legal term ‘the veil of impunity’. It’s the idea that generally in the eyes of the law, corporations are a fiction. In corporate ‘accidents’, there are fines, but mostly, nobody is held criminally responsible… who would you charge? When there is a chain of governance, which level, which person on which level should go to gaol? It led me to tech bros and to outer space… Bezos, Musk, the silicon dudes seeking the Planet B, who have lost touch with the consequences of their actions. So, Corporare has come to mean the forming of a body within a wormhole that submits to punishment… it’s a comedy.
Q: For anyone unfarmiliar with Evan Task, how would you describe him?
Matt: Evan often quotes his South African childhood ‘foundational story’ as suffering abuse from his father, which helped him to push hard, work fast and win through. Now he is a US member of the Broligarchy (apologies Carole Cadwalladr) who is a visionary blue skyer leading the human race to a Martian Planet B. He’s a corporare, a pro-natalist, techbro, fabulously rich, a super sensor, a visionary. But people also recognise that he has a vulnerable side, he is disarmingly humble with an awkward wit and awkwarder dance moves. This endears him to most anyone. Wait… was this for a dating site?
Q: What real-world connections do you think Audiences might discover amidst the strange uncertainty of Corporare -- Evan Task in Outer Space?
Tessa: Because much of this work is based on real world events, “ Tesla’s door lock malfunctions”, I think the audience will walk away with a sense of reignited rage against the injustice in the tech-bro oligarchy. Something I hadn’t been able to put my finger on before being a part of this production is the idea of the corporate veil. The slipperiness of these companies and how they can get away with literal murder without consequences. I always felt deep injustice, but I didn't have the ideas or words to articulate why. I think Corporare can put the words and ideas to the rage the audience might already feel, and ponder on the question. Are these tech Bro’s actually as unreachable as they think?
Q: What do you think will surprise audiences about this work?
Kasey: I think the audience will be surprised by how song is used within the work, bringing levity and humor to particular moments and absolute horror to others. A familiar melody has such a capacity to elicit a certain response or association within the minds of an audience and I’m excited to see how people respond.
Q: What has been the most memorable moment of your process so far?
Matt: The most memorable moment for me was realising that with Tessa directing, I didn’t need to play Jojo the wormhole ghost as well—there was another actor in the room. Once Tessa stepped onto the boards, the whole show shattered and reformed. All of sudden, we discovered that the whole story plays within the wormhole, that the whole story concerns Jojo avenging Evan’s negligence. We train with all comers on Mondays and a regular is Kasey Barratt who worked with Theatreworks last year. With Tessa stepping inside, we asked Kasey to sit outside the action. So from the moment of that realisation, quite radical changes have occurred. That’s exciting.
Tessa: Similar to Matt, actually stepping inside the play as a character in what has up till now been a 1 person show was a revelation. The first rehearsal, where I came in not as director but as player and was operating the lights, was very memorable. It felt as if the whole play had cracked open. The ideas of the wormhole and “superposition” became tangible and could finally be played out and explored in the relationship of the two characters.
Kasey: Slowly figuring out the role of Jojo within the story and the nuances of her relationship with Evan brought both clarity and opened up a world of possibilities. It was one of those ‘AH-HA!’moments in which pieces click into place and you discover a whole new dimension to the work.
Corporare - Evan Task in Outer Space plays at Explosives Factory 17 - 27 June.
The production itself appears particularly relevant because it tackles contemporary issues surrounding masculinity, identity, and the influence picture booth of online culture. Rather than approaching these topics in a conventional way, BEASTS combines physical theatre, poetic language, dark humor, and surreal imagery to create an experience that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.