David's Reviews > The Performance

This is a work that shows fiction can be simultaneously innovative and also eminently readable. The Performance follows three women as they watch a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. Set in Melbourne during the 2019-20 bushfire season, fire engulfs the Australian countryside outside the theater while the play goes on inside. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of the three women as they watch the performance. The narrative weaves from third to first (and occasionally second) person, a change so effortless and subtle we hardly notice. Through the story, we see the many ways in which our lives, consciously or not, are fundamentally performative.