Described as “a love letter to the internet”, 'Absolute Objectivity' is a new work in production by Backbone Youth Arts that will be previewed as part of the HWY Festival Of New Work at La Boite Theatre.
A brand-new musical written about the perils and triumphs of the fake news age, 'Absolute Objectivity' features an original score composed by Brisbane songwriter Jeremy Neale.
“The show is basically saying we live in this wonderful time – it's a great time to be alive in 2019 – but there's so much volatility,” Jeremy says of the show's underlying premise.
“Everyone wants to be loved but the world is full of hate, which is a strange way to try and get what you want. The internet as well is that melting pot where people express their opinions in the most unfiltered way because it seems like there's no repercussions.
“So you've got this battlefield where everyone has a very strong opinion and everyone thinks they are 100 per cent objectively correct, but obviously they're not because if they were there would only be one opinion, instead there's hundreds. It's that blind passion where everyone thinks they know how the world would work best.”
A timely and relevant response to how the digital world has permeated humanity, 'Absolute Objectivity' poses the unbearable hypothetical of 'what if the internet suddenly stopped working?', focusing the story on two bedroom beatmakers in suburban Brisbane.
“It is honestly just a critique of the world as it is right now, in the most objective way we can see it as the writers of it,” Jeremy laughs. “Obviously it's going to be skewed by its nature but we're trying our best.”
Jeremy says composing all original music for a brand-new production offered him an interesting challenge as a songwriter.
“The brief evolved over time,” he says, “but what's been good about this and what's so different between this and how I usually write, is that usually if I'm writing material for my own music it's like: 'well, let's write abut my feelings' or 'let's write about what's going on in my head or my life right now'.”
Instead, Jeremy found himself writing music that needed to serve the purposes of the dialogue and character development.
“It serves the narrative and that's the brief there, but the best part and the most fun part about this as well is that we can have so much freedom with genre because if you're basing something in the world of the internet, we have access to all kinds of music.
“Every character has their distinct tone, so instead of everything being in a Broadway musical-style genre, everything is very different. There's a lot of freedom to that, which is a lot of fun. We do what best serves the scene, what makes it most entertaining and what also embodies the character.”
Select scenes and songs from 'Absolute Objectivity' will be previewed as part of the HWY Festival Of New Work at La Boite Theatre Company in March.
“We're just showing a couple of select scenes and a few of the songs,” Jeremy says.
“It's like a preview just to see where we're at, get a little bit of feedback and see how people are reacting to it, then we'll take that onboard and keep continuing that process.”
