The Debate arrives the week Adelaide’s courts prosecuted their first deepfake pornography case. William Hamish Yeates faced 20 federal charges for using technology to harm people he never had to look in the eye. Martha Lott’s new work didn’t plan that coincidence – but theatre rarely needs to.
Lott plays The Mother, waiting outside a debating room, her daughter Chloe (Amelia Lott-Watson) on the verge of national selection. The Mother has done everything to ensure Chloe wins: fake profiles, racial targeting of the competitor, the full arsenal of someone who knows how words work and has stopped caring how wounds do.
The barrier technology creates between action and consequence doesn’t excuse her. It explains her – and that’s more disturbing.
For the first 10 minutes, Chloe appeared to be a speaking prop. The Mother monologued; Chloe offered a sentence, a trigger, and The Mother launched again. I misread this as a structural weakness. In reality, it was structural precision.
The daughter’s subordination in the play mirrored her subordination in the story: used, not seen. When Chloe finally argued back – a closing slam, a debater’s kill shot, “That’s why you are wrong” – it landed with force earned by everything withheld before it.
Lott oozes talent as a performer. As a writer, she’s sharper still. The combination produces something rarer: a storyteller who trusts her audience to catch what she won’t explain. The dark comedy sits in that gap – you laugh, then register what you laughed at, then sit with that. When the humour landed, it rolled through the audience and kept rolling, the squirm arriving a beat behind.
I came in without having seen Grounded or That Boy, which gave me no reputation to confirm and no benchmark to defend. What I saw was a world premiere that felt fully formed – though Lott told me after the show she finished writing it two weeks before opening.
Her daughter Amelia was originally intended only for the promotional flyer; enough audience members messaged Lott asking to see them perform together that the role of Chloe was written in. The seams are invisible.
Chloe’s line lands hardest: “Intention does not excuse impact.” The Mother believes otherwise – convinced she acted for love, she dressed good motive in bad behaviour and called it righteousness.
Yeates used technology to harm people at a distance, convinced, perhaps, that distance made it something other than harm. The Mother would understand that logic entirely.
The Debate
The Arch at Holden Street Theatres, 32 – 34 Holden Street, Hindmarsh (Adelaide)
Performance: Saturday 28 February 2026 (6.15 pm)
Season continues to 22 March 2026
Bookings: www.adelaidefringe.com.au
For more information, visit: www.holdenstreettheatres.com for details.
Image: Amelia Lott-Watson and Martha Lott in The Debate – courtesy of Holden Street Theatres
Review: Daniel G. Taylor