Man has always been fearful of alien life forms. What if they are smarter, stronger and more powerful than us? What if they get into our heads and come with the express purpose of taking over the planet? Now one man has not only had an up close and personal experience with an extra-terrestrial. It is the first such encounter. He has even touched it and, hence, is being interrogated about what he saw.
Sure, there is audio, still photographs and video of the incident (many people witnessed it), but an investigator is probing him to determine how he felt. It all went down a week ago and since then he has seen the videos countless times. His recollection of the two-minute incident is fuzzy.
She is not the first inquisitor to ask him the same questions. They put them to him at the military hospital where he ended up, but she is determined to break through. He said he froze. He was fearful. He felt uncomfortable and unbalanced. He was pained and destabilised. Ultimately, it comes out that he was angry. Importantly though, he knew they weren’t like us. They were not carbon-based beings, unlike all life on Earth.
Still, the questions keep coming. The examiner tries to draw a link between another life-changing incident that happened to him three months earlier, but he doesn’t want to cooperate.
This is one of the two threads in CARBON. The other links to NASA’s Voyager Program, launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system and continue to press into deep space. Two interstellar probes were sent up. Inside were scientific and cultural payloads. The latter included a gold-plated record carrying a time capsule of Earth. Incorporated within it were spoken greetings in 55 languages (some of which we hear at the start of the play). There is also imagery depicting Earth’s life forms.
The theatre piece is about trying to make sense of things we don’t understand. It also concerns grief and an attempt to reclaim what we have lost, about human self-interest. It shifts between the cosmic and the intimate, and in so doing plays with the mind.
Written by Pier Lorenzo Pisano in 2021, CARBON won the 56th Riccione Theatre Award, Italy’s most prestigious playwriting competition. It was subsequently translated into English by Atri Banerjee. So, too, I should quickly add, into several other languages, by other translators.
It is intense and unrelenting. As such, it took a long time to get to where it eventually got to. I felt it was unnecessarily drawn out. And, I’m sorry, notwithstanding the gong it received in Italy, that comes back to the writing. Much of the interrogation is circuitous. It took a long time to move forward.
Actors Caroline Lee and Pantazi Terzian are resolute, maintaining their forceful back and forth exchange, playing characters simply known as A and B. She needles. He is defensive and frustrated. Conor Leach, who plays a voice, has fun with his direct interchange with us, the audience, cheekily interrogating the human make up, being carbon. That comes with the aid of a slide show. Leach appears suddenly, then disappears and reappears nine or ten times throughout the production.
Sound design by Ian Moorhead and lighting design by Richard Vabre, along with vision design by Lochlan Maher also have important roles to play. They add to the drama. What immediately struck me, in a good way, the moment I entered the theatre was the striking set design – the rich palette created by Anna Cordingley. It is a vehicle for the interview to play out, a gold trimmed platform six stairs up, with soft curtaining, two comfortable rotating chairs and a wooden coffee table. To the right is a large video screen, while below the platform is another smaller screen.
Cordingley is also responsible for the costume design. The interrogator is wearing a neat pant suit with a silky blouse. The subject is casually attired in a track suit. There is more razzamatazz about the double-breasted sparkly suit on the buoyant voice that interposes himself between scenes involving Lee and Terzian.
So, did I like CARBON? I wasn’t totally sold, although what I will say is that it provides food for thought, causing us to reflect on the human condition and, I dare say, that was the point. Director Katy Maudlin has sheeted home the work’s poking, prodding nature. Still, she has ensured there is lightness as well as shade through the representation of the playful voice.
Ninety-five minutes including interval, CARBON is on at Red Stich Actors’ Theatre until 6th December, 2026.
Alex First
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- Super (Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre) – theatre review
- Honour (Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre) – theatre review
- Luke, at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre – theatre review
Alex First is the editor of The Blurb. Alex is a Melbourne based journalist and communications specialist. He also contributes to The Blurb on film and theatre.