Corporare: Evan Task in Outer Space (The Thursday Group), at Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory

Do tech bros, that is entrepreneurs in the tech industry, rule the modern world without taking personal accountability for their missteps?

You need not think too hard to come up with names that roll off virtually everyone’s tongues.

That is a concept explored in this horror sci-fi about such a man who sets about trying to colonise Mars.

Photos by Joe Calleri

His name is Evan Task, the founder of a company called Corporare, that has its sights on the red planet.

Not only does he make it his personal mission, but once there he intends to set off thermonuclear devices to destroy the polar ice caps and make it habitable.

First, he has to deal with voices in his head, including his imaginary friend Petra, with whom he is constantly falling out and making up. 

Inevitably, there will be setbacks to his plans, “anomalies” he calls them, even once he has made it beyond Earth’s gravitational pull.

And then he and his spacecraft fall into a wormhole, where he is faced with accountability for his previous catastrophic transgressions.

Still, driven by ego, he pushes on until his final reckoning.

Heavy on science-driven terms, Corporare: Evan Task in Outer Space is a highly creative endeavour in more ways than one.

I refer to the script, which also pays homage to noteworthy science fiction films including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Gravity and Interstellar.

But also to the nuts and bolts of the craft used for the mission, which is quite some contraption. 

So too the overall staging, which involves not only adept performer Matthew Crosby, who transforms into Evan Task and also wrote the piece, but his busy offsider.

I pay a nod to fellow performer and co-director, alongside Crosby, Tessa Marie Luminati, as being another significant driving force.

She is responsible for operating hand-held lighting, for delivering props, for rotating the space probe and for inhabiting a character named Jojo, whom Evan wronged. 

The pair turns on quite a show, navigating (if you pardon the pun) the mayhem and madness involved in the endeavour of exploring the next frontier.

I found Corporare: Evan Task in Outer Space adventurous, intriguing and challenging – a decided step off the deep end.

Part of it involves breaking the fourth wall. 

There are foreign accents, the odd musical number and props and lighting with points of difference from that which might be termed more conventional theatre.

It all adds up to a piece that is social commentary and satire, independent theatre that makes you think and feel.

Seventy minutes without interval, Corporare: Evan Task in Outer Space is on at Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory until 27^th June, 2026.