Roderick Chambers speaks with writer & director PHILLIP JAMES ROUSE about his play Night Slows Down.

Written as a response to recent events in global politics, Don’t Look Away and bAKEHOUSE will present a powerful new production, Night Slows Down, exploring how small choices and moral failures can lead inexorably to a disaster point.

Written and directed by acclaimed Sydney theatre-maker, Phillip James Rouse (Inner Voices, A Property of the Clan, The Legend of King O’Malley), Night Slows Down imagines a world where far right extremists have won the election. Where ordinary citizens riot in the streets and human rights are denied. On the horizon, storms clouds are gathering.

In the face of a dying democracy, the vilification of experts and looming environmental disaster – Night Slows Down sees the scale of the problems we face globally, telescoped down to a single family.

Playwright and Director Phillip James Rouse said, “I couldn’t find any plays that spoke to the immediate moment, what it’s like to live in 2017. I have been wanting to move Don’t Look Away into new writing for some time. The timing was right so I decided to write my own work. Night Slows Down explores how the choices of everyday people reflect grand failures of governance that ultimately can lead to a disaster point. How failures and compromises can and will affect our future.”

“The show sees the corrosion of government, visa detainees become state labour forces, exasperated experts try to avert disasters and entire cities destroyed. It imagines a world that is potentially only a moment away, and a tragedy that may be too late to avoid!”

Writer and Director: Phillip James Rouse; Production Design: Anna Gardiner and Martelle Hunt; Lighting Design: Sian James-Holland; Dramaturg: Nell Ranney; Assistant Director: Chantelle Jamieson; With: Andre de Vanney, Danielle King and Johnny Nasser.