Agrotis infusa means “infused by the land” – part of terra firma. Agrotis comes from the Greek meaning “farmer”. Ironically, the nomenclature refers to a particular moth which is a pest to crops. So it’s both of the land and enemy to it.
In the
language of the Dhudhoroa people of North West Victoria, it is called bugung,
which simply means “brown moth”. The anglicised name is “bogong” and there’s a
town named after it, and a mountain nestled in the Bogong High Plains. The
traditional name of the plains is Warkwoolowler, meaning the mountain
where First Nations people collected the “boo gong fly”.
For many
years, the bogong was famous for tens of thousands of its moth friends covering
Parliament House in Canberra. After a slow decline of their population started
in the early 2000s, by 2018, global warming had led to a drought across Australia.
In the ACT, the moths stopped swarming Parliament House.
They’d
probably got tired of politicians doing nothing to slow anthropogenic climate
change. Or perhaps they just didn’t recognise the colonial government of
so-called Australia.
Noemie
Huttner-Koros’ play, Democracy Repair Service, is kind of like that
moth, flitting around the audience, threatening to land somewhere, before
alighting and flying around the room again. Sometimes you could admire its artfulness,
its playfulness – a whisper of moths fluttering in formation. And sometimes you
didn’t know where to look or where it might head next.
The play is
concerned with protest and direct action and civil disobedience. It starts with
four teens trying to agree on how to run a meeting with a flat structure, where
every voice is the most important at the moment. But it’s soon clear that while
they want to work together to effect change – there’s a Federal Election coming
– they are going to find it hard to agree how.
That’s the
trick, of course. Conservative politicians, conservative media, conservative
people never think progressive people protest in the right way – if they even (really)
believe in free speech at all. The group is trying to make their mark, get
engagement on social media or make any difference to their future at all. Only
one of them is even eighteen and eligible to vote. But they are concerned about
the world.
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| Bogong Moth Population numbers |
There’s a
lot to be concerned about, but the most effective sequence is the discussion of
the moths and Parliament House and the steady decline in their numbers. And how
obvious it is to them that the decline is because the world is getting hotter
and even if we survive, many species won’t.
They start
to discuss more radical action against a fossil fuel company and ructions start
to become more apparent in the group. It’s the day of the election. Are they
ever going to be remembered? Will they survive? Will any of us?
Set designer
Dylan Lumsden gives us bright orange temporary fencing that surrounds the stage
at the beginning, but unfolds and curls up around the characters as the play
progresses. From warning sign to dire emergency. Sound design by Nick Rinaldi
is an almost persistent rumbling or rushing through the spokes of an upturned
bike, leaving the whole ordeal to feel off-kilter and oppressive.
The ensemble
bounces off each other through a series of vignettes that start adding up to
more and more and more drama. Moths flocking together to cover Parliament
House. But as with most every disaster movie, the increasing trauma on top of trauma
starts to overwhelm – and on opening night, it was difficult to hear some of
the performers over the otherwise excellent score. Or each other.
After five
years away, the bogong moths returned to cover Parliament House in 2023 because
the drought broke but the species itself still sits on the International Union
for the Conservation of Nature’s endangered species list. And the moths are
probably congregating on the central building of democracy in this country
because on their flight path south, they are distracted by the fact it’s lit up
all night. Moths gunna moth.
And young
people are going to shout and protest and make agitprop theatre because what
else are they supposed to do? There’s some beautiful writing in Huttner-Koros’
script, but it’s muddied by some of the directorial choices – like having the
actors lie down on the stage and project toward the ceiling. But when you can
hear the dialogue and the beautifully crafted monologues, Democracy Repair
Service flies toward the light of truth and makes us feel hopeful even in
distressing times.
Watch the moths and see these young theatremakers try to repair democracy until Oct 11
Photo: Kaede James Takamoto
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