Review: A NEST OF SKUNKS SMELLS ALL TOO REAL FOR SOCIETY - Worth Watching at Depot Theatre

What if the lucky country's luck ran out? Australia has not in the past fifteen years that terrorism has been a key issue all around the globe experienced an act of terror on home soil. We have lost many in overseas massacres, but Australia has been a haven from bombs, shootings and kidnappings during the modern wave of terrorism, which makes it only a matter of time essentially before the events of A Nest of Skunks are likely to unfold. Adapted from Roger Vickery's short story about two Australians who have escaped a detention centre, thrust upon the mercy of a covert network of safe houses, it has translated very strongly on stage with the subtle nuance of Travis Green's direction.

Lily has been a short-term skunk handler for some time and has in her care two refugees from Australia Stephen and Sam, both incredibly traumatised by their ordeal and struggling to communicate. In the midst of it all the network is compromised and the den sent into panic mode by the arrival of Kristy and the untimely interruptions of likely One-Nation poster girl Miriam from next door. Although there was some unresolved confusion about where the Aussies had escaped to, which impacted the framework of how Stephen could and could not communicate, A Nest of Skunks yielded scarily insightful predictions as to how the xenophobia, media manipulation and emergent-feudalism of contemporary democracy would impact us all.

Penelope Lee held the weight of the drama with sincerity and candour, which added necessary shades of grey to the narrative. Amanda Maple-Brown made for a marvellous antagonist whose red-herring intellectual delivery aided lifting the entire play for plausibility. Brendan Miles as Stephen emoted captivatingly, but did not seem as serviced by the script in terms of inconsistencies in the rudimentary nature of his language. Aanisa Vylet as Stephen's affected daughter Sam snapped up every opportunity she had on stage and off it to own the frayed nerve of the play and use it like a whip to keep tensions high throughout the action. Representing the closest thing to cultural diversity in the play, she gave a heart-wracking performance.

Rachel Scane has created a set that allowed for swollen drama, tense covert whispering and spoke to distance between people and yet when called for, intensely enclosed action at other moments. Nothing like a kitchen to set the mood for domestic drama, and I felt those carrots getting cut up like Penelope Lee had taken the knife to my arm. Plays such as this are important to our understanding of issues clouded by a lack of empathy on our part. Measures like whitewashed plays about refugees shouldn't have to be resorted to for us to be woken up to what's happening, but a good opportunity remains in plays like A Nest of Skunks. On top of which, much gratitude to the whole cast and crew, along with Depot Theatre and Collaborations Theatre Group for donating a portion of ticket sales on select performances to Asylum Seekers Centre.

Tickets available here.

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