This Is Eden

It's commonly said that those who don't learn from history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Convict parable This Is Eden takes an even more aggressive stance. It suggests that those who ignore history's crimes will inevitably inflict them. In this seething new solo, by playwright-performer Emily Goddard and director Susie Dee, the connections between the brutal punishments of the past and today's refugees imprisoned for seeking asylum, are drawn thick and heavy.

Before heading through to the seating, Jane, in a bonnet and period dress, introduces herself as our guide and gives us a slightly ditzy Sovereign Hill-style induction. Writer and sole performer Goddard plays up the role, taking selfies, getting stuck in a spiked prop collar and genially chatting with audience members.

We follow her through to our seats and Jane's levity already feels uncomfortable in front of Romanie Harper's set design. Behind Goddard, a raised platform of iron grates makes up the floor of a wall-less cell, in which lays a frayed length of rope, a naked bed frame, two buckets and a bible. The roof is a corroded halo of girders suspended from above, cleverly rigged to leak water. It's an ugly scene, but then that's the whole point; despite its stark, imposing presence, most people are more than happy to ignore a barbaric truth, snarling in the corner.

We meet Mary down there in the dark and all those uneasy feelings are immediately justified. Jane leaves us and dull amber lights reveal a woman, filthy, beaten and pregnant, clinging to the phrase "My name is Mary Ford." Mary's story is unveiled through manic impersonations of the people who put her in this hell; the jealous Governess who sent her to the Female Factory, the lecherous Reverend, full of brimstone, condemning the women even as he preys on them, and the spineless Super Intendant that punishes them for protecting themselves.

Gina Gascoigne's lighting dims and brightens indiscernibly so that our eyes are never quite allowed to adjust. Despairing in the gloom, Goddard's physicality is also in constant flux, bringing each of Mary's mad parodies their own unique ticks and grotesque inflections. Lurking at the edges is Ian Moorhead's soundtrack. Full of low synths, it sounds like the Outback scored by Vangelis. It rises to a deafening, beatific drone at times and occasionally gains the uneven sound of water dripping on an underground lake. But for the most part, it's just imperceptibly, undeniably present — the background radiation of this grim incarceration.

Considering the convicts' place in the Australian psyche — the battler, the bushranger, the drover, all archetypes drawn from that plucky hard luck, hard yakka caricature — the idea that the descendants of those harried and banished people have taken hold of the lock and key themselves does not sit well. The Governess's hypocrisy, invoking a paradise for her children's children's children while closing the gate to all others, is one of the millions of instances when someone has flippantly attempted to justify why one human life is worth less than another — on TV, down the pub, wherever. The countless shonky disguises worn by the reasoning fall away, as the Governess's imperious indifference turns to horror turns to fear turns to hate.

But Goddard is gunning for trickier game than closet or clear-cut xenophobes. "You don't know, but that's not your fault, it's nobody's fault," we're assured by Jane at the start — a sentiment that drags across the skin of this piece with jagged-edged sarcasm. Another common saying is that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, and this play is aimed directly at good-hearted men and women that believe it has nothing to do with them. People unwilling to recognise the past and its place in our present.

This Is Eden can be extremely heavy-handed in places, and it can be grating to have Goddard spell out such caustic truths. But in times when all manner of atrocities fail to cause the outrage they deserve, maybe there's no such thing as a heavy-handed message.

Emily Goddard presents This Is Eden at Fortyfivedownstairs till 7 May.