The grand colonial space that is Sydney Town Hall makes a resonant venue for Dark Noon, a powerful, rough-hewn performance piece that digests the globalised mythology of the American Wild West and spits it back into your face.

Dark Noon, Sydney Town Hall. Photo © Victor Frankowski

Dark Noon begins with a blank canvas with the audience arranged on three sides – a terra nullius if you like –  on which seven indefatigable, multi-talented South African performers (Mandla Gaduka, Katlego Kaygee Letsholonyana, Lillian Malulyck, Bongani Bennedict Masango, Siyambonga Alfred Mdubeki, Joe Young and Thulani Zwane) embark on a survey of American frontier history that skids and swerves across the space.

The show starts with a touch of wry comedy as two gunfighters square up spaghetti Western-style, while another performer rolls across the space. It takes the audience a couple of seconds to work out why. Then, en masse, we get it. He’s a tumbleweed!

From there, in nine chapters, the majority black cast, performing in smeared-on ‘white face’ and blond wigs, rip into the tropes of the Old West. The grand narrative of the...