Something magical is happening at La Boite, and the sorcerer is Brisbane actor turned playwright Kathryn Marquet.
Her first play, Pale Blue Dot, spins the majesty of space science, the comedy of alien conspiracy theories and the terror of domestic relationships into a stellar theatrical yarn.
Supported by unparalled production design and a rocking soundtrack, it just might be the best thing onstage this year.
The always remarkable Hugh Parker plays Joel, a Toowoomba insurance assessor experienced in rejecting both dodgy and legitimate claims (including from the 2011 floods).
He meets Greta (Caroline Kennison), a crotchety German 50-something who believes her daughter Storm (Ashlee Lollback) is being pursued by aliens.
The 17-year-old apparently inherited a valuable hybrid genetic make-up from her father, who mysteriously disappeared while flying a plane some years earlier.
When Storm vanishes during a party at Highfields only to mysteriously turn up in Roma, Greta demands an insurance payout in order to protect the teen (although it’s never really explained how one can take out insurance against alien abduction).
Joel suspects a more logical teenage explanation, but is slowly drawn into the dynamics of this mother-daughter relationship, as the domineering Greta clashes more and more with the maturing Storm.
Meanwhile Joel’s wife Holly (Lucy Goleby) is struggling to cope with their five-month old daughter, who sleeps like an insomniac after a double shot of espresso and can’t stop crying.
Already feeling frazzled and frumpy, Holly grows more confused as her husband becomes fixated on his latest case.
Pale Blue Dot’s chief concern is how people react to feeling isolation, whether it be the domestic sphere of the new mum, the teenager trying to fit in, or the woman running scared from a universal reality.
On top of that, Storm, Holly and Greta represent the three classic images of women from ancient myth – the maiden, the mother and the crone – and each exist to challenge Joel’s idea of himself and what his priorities should be.
All of this shouldn’t distract from the play’s chief asset – its humour. Pale Blue Dot is truly funny, full of moments of brilliant wordplay, slapstick and even high camp.
All four cast members deliver excellent performances, with director Michael Futcher honing its deft comic touch with heart and warmth.
Kennison in particular is a standout, particularly for her secondary role as Deidre Spinnaker, the Darling Downs chief UFO expert who is both a prudish local busybody and a committed conspiracy theorist.
With her pitch perfect nasally ocker tones and precision timing, Kennison didn’t so much raise the bar as hurl it so far into deep space it smashed into Alpha Centauri.
The fifth cast member is the marvellous set and lighting design overseen by Josh McIntosh. The use of a round central panel as a screen as a well as a staging area is inspired, and combined with Jason Glenwright’s smooth lighting design allows audience members to fall into the play.
Brisbane visual projection company Optikal Bloc have created images of daring and wonder that flash in the set’s circular centre and onto its mesh curtain background, swallowing the audience whole. Gordon Hamilton and Samuel Boyd’s soundscape is light, melancholic or thumping where required; this is a production where all the elements have come together as precisely as a moon landing.
Marquet wrote Pale Blue Dot while part of La Boite’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2013 (and after starring in The Glass Menagerie for the company). It’s a tribute to everyone involved that the play be brought to life so quickly.
The story is both comfortingly local and compellingly universal, and it’s the kind of dazzling debut that will turn Marquet into a national name. LaBoite is claiming her now, and the rest of Brisbane should join in.
LaBoite’s Pale Blue Dot plays at the Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove, until August 9. Tickets are $25 to $68 available online.
