B E A S T S

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https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2026/beasts

Date Reviewed: 07/05/2026

At Explosives Factory, Theatre Works and Persona Collective present BEASTS, which erupts as a deranged and exhilarating farce — a fever dream of fragile masculinity collapsing under the weight of its own desperation. Written with wicked intelligence by Robert Lewis and directed with chaotic precision by emerging artist Callum Bodman, the production drags audiences headfirst into the hellish corners of the online manosphere, where ego, shame and delusion mutate into something monstrous.

The premise is deceptively simple: a group of dejected young men, convinced the world has denied them what they are “owed”, summon the grotesque embodiment of masculinity itself — Alpha — in the hope of reclaiming their imagined virtue. What follows is a spiralling descent into physical and psychological horror, rendered through visceral physical theatre, poetic prose and grotesque comedy. BEASTS is as funny as it is disturbing, weaponising absurdity to expose the terrifying vulnerability beneath performative masculinity.

Lewis’ script crackles with irreverence and rage, interrogating toxic masculinity not as an abstract social issue but as a living, festering culture incubated online. The production refuses easy moralising; instead, it plunges into chaos, allowing the audience to squirm and squeal in equal measure. The result is jarring yet entirely intentional — a theatrical experience that feels gloriously grotesque.

Visually, the show is striking, darkly comedic and cleverly lit. Georgia Mason conjures a surreal wasteland of decaying masculine ideals, where hyper-masculine iconography curdles into nightmare. The aesthetic lands somewhere between cubist panic and corporate sociopathy. Mason drenches the production in beastly visual grit through the set, props, lighting, and costumes, one of the best static stages I have seen in some time. While John Sharp’s entirely original score pulses beneath it all with mounting dread and feral intensity.

The ensemble cast — Annaliese Cartwright, Chloe McKeon, Geraldine Cutler and Lilly Infantino — deliver fearless performances that pulse with manic energy. Their transformations are sharp, strangely tragic, animating the work like Frankenstein’s monster. The timing is exquisite, with some clever additional characters in the form of podcast hosts, extremely well scripted.

What makes BEASTS so compelling is its refusal to soften itself for comfort. It is deliberately abrasive theatre that punches directly through the brittle veneer of masculine fragility. Whether audiences leave laughing, sweating or deeply unsettled, the production succeeds in forcing confrontation — not only with the state of modern masculinity, but with the systems that continue to nurture it. 

At a time when toxic masculinity and online radicalisation are shaping young minds across Australia and around the world, BEASTS feels less like optional viewing and more like essential education — a production, (if compacted a little) that deserves a place in school curriculums nationwide.

BEASTS is playing at the Explosives factory, Inkerman Street St Kilda, until Saturday 16th of May.

Reviewed by Vivien Lynch