We don’t have a universal basic income in Australia. So, if you weren’t born wealthy and don’t want to live in a van, you gotta work. But the experimental piece work.txt by UK company SUBJECT OBJECT is motivated by the matter of when someone gets to the point where they can’t, or won’t, and what happens after. Or is this some tricky misdirection?
If you’ve experienced an uninspiring job, lousy work culture, or even an awful commute, you probably have a decent insight already. In the last few years, possibly coinciding with cost-of-living pressures, we’ve even found new concepts to help us understand feelings that we might have struggled to articulate previously.
Covid-19 highlighted “languishing”, and “quiet cracking” followed. China has given us “tangping” – “lying flat” in a low-stress life, giving you time for other things, rather than enduring a high-pressure job for more money.
Punters were primed to expect some insight from the tale of an office worker (here “Petunia” – drawn from the audience) who has stopped working: “The audience must attempt to work together to figure out why.”
Everyone willing to be involved at the start could be – there was an on-stage task requiring input. After that, dialogue was projected on a screen, with instructions on which segment of the audience should read the text aloud.
In a few instances, volunteers were sought to read scripts freshly printed on stage, or to relay phrases they heard through headphones. It seemed quite bold to ignore the conventional “show, don’t tell” advice.
The slow pacing of slabs of communal line reading could lessen our engagement with the story, revealing a limitation of this approach. It also seemed that the audience were “working in parallel” rather than “working together”. Belatedly, there was some variation in how the tale was presented, which may have helped those of waning interest.
While the initial group task may have had some audience members adapting their input to what others had done before them, the result played a very minor role in the piece. This made the novelty aspect feel like something of a gimmick. The setting could remind us of being at work on a bad day, executing tasks that we felt had no meaning. But, we’re not at work.
Some of us might have suspected that Petunia couldn’t continue working having realised she’s in one of the specific kinds of “bullshit job” that has arisen from late-stage capitalism.
But then, maybe others watching would think it’s a plum role compared to the various manual, low-paid, or gig jobs around. Unfortunately, we’re left to our own opinions, as the piece’s subplots seemed to distract it from addressing (at least, what was advertised as) its central task.
There was an amusing flourish somewhere around the middle when a tourist showed scepticism for a gallery curator’s exhibition about “work”. The tourist had a job, and they knew what work is. Instead, they “… wanted to look at some nice art and feel calmer for a while.” Similarly, what benefit does work.txt have for us working stiffs?
work.txt has been around for some years now. Initially, here in 2025, its provocation seems vague compared to the various highly specific concepts we can now draw on in critiquing our jobs.
Afterwards, web outlets showed quotes from audience members on how much they enjoyed the communal experience. It seems that the rapid compliance achieved by work.txt might give an up-close view of just how successful tech companies have been at “colonising” our attention spans for their benefit, not so much ours.
If resistance is not futile, it seems extremely difficult given the resources of Silicon Valley. Maybe we won’t have leisure for much longer, for as long as we have a network connection and a screen, there can always be more work, on the bus, at home, or in the theatre.
work.txt
Common Rooms, Trades Hall, Corner Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton
Performance: Friday 3 October 2025 – 7:30pm
Season continues to 12 October 2025
Information and Bookings: www.melbournefringe.com.au
Image: work.txt – photo by Alex Brenner
Review: Jason Whyte