The world premiere of Second Coming is a contemplation of humanity’s near future, but it is so thematically crowded that it loses touch with the play’s human heart.

The third work by Playlab Literary Manager Kathryn Marquet to premiere at La Boite (preceded by Pale Blue Dot in 2014 and The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek in 2018) Second Coming examines the intersection of money-making and environmental catastrophe in a signature style interspersing dialogue with monologues in which characters wax poetic about their core beliefs, hopes and fears.

La Boite Theatre’s Second Coming. Photo © Stephen Henry

In 2065, Earth is becoming uninhabitable and corporate missions to Mars offer hope for humanity. The Ark II, funded by corporate superpower Genesis and its trillionaire CEO Zane Brooksbank (played via video by Darren Gilshenan), is on course for the Second Eden on Mars.

The ship is loaded with the DNA of endangered animals, to be raised in purpose-built biomes and overseen by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Evie. Also aboard are fanatical captain Zara (Merlynn Tong), charismatic celebrity chef-cum-horticulturalist Noah (Gideon Mzembe), and Evie’s trailing spouse, Alan (Anthony Standish), a geologist.

They are monitored by Aida (voiced by Elise Grieg), the cheerfully judgmental artificial intelligence that runs the spaceship.

The audience enters the Ark II more than a month into the mission, as Evie worries she is pregnant and the first batch of zygotes in her lab fails. The daily transmissions to Earth that require dancing, smiling and product placement are fraying her nerves; her mother (Helen Howard, via video) is sending video messages she won’t respond to; and her husband spends all day making Play-Doh sculptures or immersed in an augmented-reality game inspired by the East India Company.

Interpersonal tensions boil over, and the crew makes a horrifying discovery about the nature of their mission. It all reaches an absurd climax featuring Jane Austen, a shirtless astronaut and a guinea pig.

La Boite Theatre’s Second Coming. Photo © Stephen Henry

Directed by Playlab Artistic Director and CEO Ian Lawson, Second Coming was commissioned in 2024 and is staged on a multilevel thrust set designed by Bill Haycock, playing to three sides of the Roundhouse Theatre.

The spaceship interior glows and blinks in futuristic neon, and the crew are costumed in jumpsuits colour-coded to denote their mission rank, also designed by Haycock. Lighting design by Geoff Squires is integrated to illuminate and define rooms and walkways, storage pods, and other props or set elements.

AV design by Nevin Howell plays montages of destruction and wildlife, as well as video messages from Brooksbank and Evie’s mother. Composition and sound design by Wil Hughes includes the background hum of the spaceship and the bland, upbeat music of the corporate transmissions.

The cast of four pour passion and personality into their characters. Ashlee Lollback – who played teenage Storm in Marquet’s Pale Blue Dot when it premiered at La Boite – plays the cynical and single-minded Evie, focusing on her conservation mission while trying to ignore the terrifying reality of her accidental interstellar pregnancy.

Gideon Mzembe in La Boite Theatre’s Second Coming. Photo © Stephen Henry

Merlynn Tong gives a fully committed performance as Zara, from rapturous inspiration in corporate prayer to furious arguments with Lollback’s Evie and desperate bargaining with Aida. Gideon Mzembe’s Noah is cheerful and charismatic, while Anthony Standish brings his strong comedic presence to the role of Alan.

Marquet tries to ask chewy, complex questions in Second Coming: how can humanity avoid making the same mistakes of colonisation, slavery and resource extraction on a new planet? How can individuals live their values and still survive in a system designed to exploit them? What debt is owed to the decimated planet and to those left behind to survive on it?

The play touches on humanity’s future, technofeudalism, climate catastrophe, eco-grief, late-stage capitalism, the threat of artificial intelligence, galactic governance, abortion, imperialism, televangelism and much more – but only lightly. In trying to meld all of these with present-day politics and build character and relationship arcs in 95 minutes, the messaging becomes cluttered and the call to action – a non-specific rallying cry to ‘rise up’ – is rendered toothless.

One or two of these denser themes might have been tackled with due nuance and emotional investment, but Second Coming skates between talking points without digging in.

Second Coming is weighed down by its own admirable ambition, and the result, despite well-crafted design and strong actor performances, is ultimately a directionless scream into the void of space.

Second Coming plays at the La Boite Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane until 22 August.