Type – Environmental, Dark Humour, Two-Hander
If you liked – These Youths Be Protesting (KXT), American Psycho, Macbeth
3 Billion Seconds: A burning passion lays buried just beneath the surface in this gritty piece of moral ambiguity in the climate era
Current population in the world as of starting typing: 8,288,672,935
Offsetting your carbon footprint feels like a monumentous task for the everyday person. You can recycle efficiently, utilise your FOGO bin, ride a bike instead of driving to work, but ultimately your erased footprint in the world will just be stepped in again by the next person who “spreads forth and multiplies”. We’ll continue to fill the world with more mouths to feed, more waste to manage, more footprints to leave behind. Sounds pretty bleak, but it’s a harsh truth we have to face unless we choose to bury our heads in the sand.
Speaking of sand, 3 Billion Seconds presented by Blinking Light Theatre utilises a theatrically sized amount of it – top notch segway. KXT Bakehouse ends their summer season with yet another incorporation of the elements, earth, in a season which saw most of them at play: Gravy = Water, Till The Stars Come Down = Fire, if the next production can harness wind, then we’ll have a full house. The earth in both its metaphysical and spiritual forms creates the soul of Maud Dromgoole‘s play, one which is humorously macabre and bizzare in its messaging of morals and how far you’re prepared to go to stick by them.
Daisy (Izabella Louk) and Michael (Victor Y Z Xu) are two militant climate activists. Their speciality? Population control. From their small audience attended performances where they shout didacticsm – “Humans are poison!”- through to their mission to be better vegans, their relationship is one that is built on leaving as little a carbon footprint as possible in the metropolitan of London. Unsurprisingly, it’s not very successful.
After a few crossed wires, the pair are forced to reconcile with their own views on the carbon footprint when they fall pregnant. It’s here that Dromgoole ventures into the darkly absurd – think American Psycho if Brett Easton Ellis was a climate activist. The foundational premise would make for a brilliant Netflix limited series.
Centred in KXT’s traverse stage, Mia MacCormick‘s design plants Daisy and Michael in a sandbox with a few pieces of scattered furniture – a bed, two glossy red chairs, a table. On a small bedside table, a laptop counts up how many people are in the total population of the world as the minutes tick by; it doesn’t do wonders for your anxiety. Hidden underneath the sand are bits of costume and props that Louk and Xu dig up to take on different characters throughout – something that could have been harnessed further for the sense of absurdism that’s layered over the piece.
Dromgoole’s script is a tricky one to navigate. Dominique Purdue‘s direction focuses on the interrelationship of Louk and Xu in the two-hander, landing the humour and messaging sharply where it’s needed but requiring refinement in the trickier cross-sections. Environmental pieces aim to not be didactic in their approach so as not to bore the same messages into its audience, but they also seek to provide new avenues and ways of considering the threat we face. Here, Purdue deftly navigates the line. As our pair cross into a bloody Macbeth-like tale of deceit and ambition, the piece finds its footing in the sand with Louk and Xu shifting shape when needed. But there’s a disparity there, a directness that yearns to keep with the pace of the script.
Lighting design by Caity Cowan also lands in this field of hit-and-miss. Gorgeous yellow beams are thread directly onto the players as they let sand pass through their fingers, creating a fine mist that floats in the air, each grain a new life that’s added to the world. Other moments fail to define where we are in space and time, changing at intervals without direction of where the audience are meant to follow.
What is beautiful about Blinking Light Theatre’s work that they stage is the environmentally friendly aspects through which they do so. I encourage you to scan the program and read up on it. It’s not only educational, but it shows you that even us sitting in the dark, either escaping or learning in a dark space is another footprint which we have to offset. Learning can be fun!
Is 3 Billion Seconds Worth Seeing in Sydney?
Independent theatre is inherently a tricky beast to tie all your ethics into one place – mainly due to the restrictive budgets and maverick-like thinking that come with it. Navigating this and still managing to both entertain and educate is worthy of applause. 3 Billion Seconds may not be as tight and direct as it deserves to be, but neither is it lacking in its drive and purpose. There’s a inherent passion that’s burning in there, maybe just beneath the grains of sand. Still, there is good fodder for your next dinner party: How far are you willing to go to stick to your values?
Current population in the world as of finishing typing: 8,288,678,834
Tickets and Practical Info for 3 Billion Seconds in Sydney 🎟️
KXT on Broadway
Until 2nd May, 2026
Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/3-billions-seconds-kxt26
Director Dominique Purdue; with Izabella Louk & Victor Y Z Xu
Understudies Seth Rafael Barrun & Natalie Patterson
Understudies performance: Tuesday 28 April
Lighting Designer Caity Cowan; Set and Costume Designer Mia MacCormick; Composer & Sound Designer Cameron Smith; Stage Manager Bianca Dreis; Assist Dir Lara Kocsis; Intimacy Director: Sonya Kerr; Movement Director: Luke Visentin; Assistant Stage Manager: Fletcher Scully
Producers Emily Crow, Karrine Kanaan, Izabella Louk
Presented by Blinking Light
