Drawing on the self-documented death of the eminent herpetologist Dr. Karl Patterson Schmidt, historical accounts of the religious ritual of snake handling, personal reports of self-poisoning, reptilian myths of genesis, and the coming apocalypse, Everybody Loses  interrogates societal obsessions with eternal youth, eternal life, and the destruction of our planet. 

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A 1950s scientific lecture, a death diary, a suicide note, an old-timey Southern-style snake handling, and that warning from that one scientist at the start of every disaster film ever. EVERYBODY LOSES is a glorious spectacle and a grave work; this solo performance engages with themes of climate change and the sixth great extinction; asking, with the unprecedented scientific documentation of the changing planet, and our failure to respond to the symptoms, is it too late to stop the poison?

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Doppelgangster is an international performance company, currently creating work in the UK and Australia under the creative direction of Tobias Manderson-Galvin (MKA Theatre of New Writing, Melbourne) and Dr. Tom Payne (Sheffield Hallam University). Everybody Loses is co-created by Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Dr. Tom Payne, performed by Dr. Tom Payne, and featuring videography by Wales-based filmmaker Dr. Sam Christie, and an original score by Australian experimental jazz duo Maria Moles and Adam Halliwell. 

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“Intelligent and unquestionably effective”   - Placing the Anthropocene (UK)

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“Forcibly entertaining” - Melbourne Critique (Australia)

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“Rather like life but with better timing” - A Modern Antiquarian (UK)

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Thanks: Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Sheffield Hallam University; MKA Theatre; Alan Resetar (Chicago Field Museum of Natural History); Mark Whitehead (Aberystwyth University); and Copeia.  

 

Tour: 2017: Aberystwyth Arts Centre (Aberystwyth); 2018: La Générale (Paris); Waterloo Vaults (London); Performance Lab (Sheffield); Universidad de Alcalá (Alcalá de Henares); The Projector (Singapore); Backbone Arts (Brisbane); Prahan, MKA pop-up Theatre (Melbourne); KXT (Sydney); Aparat Athen (Athens); 2019: Performance Lab (Sheffield).