When Shaun Parker’s King premiered during the 2019 Sydney Mardi Gras, it was a highlight of the festival’s cultural program. A tragicomic takedown of the social mores observed by men, and the toll of their imposition, KING bristled with an almost improvisatory energy, despite its intricately choreographed sequences. This more than suited the increasingly regressive behaviour of its protagonists.

Ivo Dimchev in KING. Photo © Prudence Upton

Four years on, Parker forgoes some of that spontaneity in favour of a more polished and altogether darker work, in which a sense of impending doom takes hold as soon as the curtains part to reveal horticultural adviser/designer Penny Hunstead’s ‘jungle’ and a solitary, crystal chandelier.

The narrative thread is the same – an examination of toxic masculinity that, like Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies and The Hairy Ape, unpacks man’s primal urges and tendency toward violence. And as before, the climax is devastating and not far removed from Wayne McGregor’s Obsidian Tear, performed by The Australian Ballet last year.

The 2019 incarnation of King oscillated between humour and tragedy. Parker now settles for uneasy chuckles from the audience, establishing a sense of...