THEATRE

EGG★★½

Angela Betzien, Melbourne Theatre Company and Terrapin Puppet Theatre

The Lawler, Southbank Theatre

Until July 19



In recent years, the Melbourne Theatre Company has embraced children's theatre with the seriousness it deserves, incorporating school holiday fare in the Lawler and more extended works into its main stage season. The results have largely been brilliant, with show after show – Marlin, The Boy at the Edge of Everything and Masquerade to name a few – exhibiting the sort of immersive world-creation that grown-ups pine for, and often as not don't get, in the company's plays for adults.

Jim Russell, Ovo (with puppeteer Michelle Robin Anderson) and Genevieve Morris in Egg. Credit:Jeff Busby

Not this time. Angela Betzien​'s Egg is just that: an embryonic idea that never quite hatches. It's a shame, because Betzien's marriage of ecologically themed science fiction (a subgenre that's become known as "cli-fi") and buddy story has much potential.

Horse (Genevieve Morris) and Clyde (Jim Russell) are two tinkers traipsing through the desert with a large egg in tow. They don't remember why they're there till they try to tell their tale.