Description
Stephen Carleton’s New Babylon is a macabre comedy exploring themes of decadence, waste, and the logical end points of compulsive consumption under late capitalism. The companion piece to the 2018 hit, The Turquoise Elephant, New Babylon is the second in a proposed trilogy of absurdist works dealing with the climate change crisis.
Aunt Olympia is on board a “dark tourism” ship, bound for the great plastic vortexes of the Pacific Ocean. She thinks she is touring the world’s great sites of environmental degradation as a privileged voyeur, but when our audience joins her to watch her voyage – as lucky lottery winners aboard the ship – things take a bizarre turn. As the ship ploughs through the great Pacific trash gyres on its journey to a mysterious outpost – New Babylon – the occupants begin behaving more strangely, and our own presence aboard the ship, has us questioning our complicity in the dire circumstances we all find ourselves in.
PRODUCTION HISTORY: New Babylon is a Knock-em-Down and Brown’s Mart production premiering at Browns Mart Theatre on June 8, 2021.
ISBN: 978-1-76161-049-3
Aunt Olympia is on board a “dark tourism” ship, bound for the great plastic vortexes of the Pacific Ocean. She thinks she is touring the world’s great sites of environmental degradation as a privileged voyeur, but when our audience joins her to watch her voyage – as lucky lottery winners aboard the ship – things take a bizarre turn. As the ship ploughs through the great Pacific trash gyres on its journey to a mysterious outpost – New Babylon – the occupants begin behaving more strangely, and our own presence aboard the ship, has us questioning our complicity in the dire circumstances we all find ourselves in.