Charlotte Thornton reviews Motion Sickness, presented by a2 Company, at Little Andromeda, Friday 20 March 2026.
Aussie-New Zealand production house a2 Company can’t help but blow us away. When I reviewed their multi-award-winning Running Into the Sun for Bad Apple back in September, I said that show had “an apocalyptic vibe because the world has an apocalyptic vibe.” Six months on, how are we all feeling?
Ethan Morse is back in another white costume for Motion Sickness, a breathless, kinetic meditation on the apocalypse. Morse is the only performer with dialogue, but he is not alone on the Little Andromeda stage. He is flanked by Toby Leman, who plays his gorgeous synth-and-sax soundtrack live, and Asha Barr, who works her own magic live with her astoundingly complex AV design. Apart from a few instruments and laptops, the only setpiece is a ring of curtains suspended from the ceiling. Morse uses these to transition between vignettes; it’s particularly delightful when he pulls each curtain to mimic flipping pages in a book.
The epic monologue which opens the show, and its accompanying AV projection, is a doomscroll-as-panic attack. Your screen becomes reality, because most of it is reality, though you can never be sure these days. This is a routine of all smartphone users (read: us) but we prefer to do it alone. It’s a collective experience which is never shared. That is, until Motion Sickness.
Morse’s performance connects our Gen Z hang-ups to our deep-seated existential dread. He has charisma for days. He introduces us to three possible doomsday scenarios, none of them manmade, all of them terrifying. Morse is a remarkable talent: in Running Into the Sun he was a cynical everyman, in Motion Sickness a raw nerve. He walks us through our own brains with the poise of a hilarious and high-strung tour guide.
Motion Sickness has a touch of Blade Runner in its vision of the present. The world the performers (and we) live in is watchful, digital, mediated, referential, tense. A blue dress glitters under the light of an iPhone. A beach is not quite a beach. We are asked to imagine what ‘nothing’ feels like.
a2 Company co-directors Ben Ashby and Nadiyah Akbar provide the text and choreography, respectively. These elements work in tandem beautifully: the projected words form shapes and patterns which Morse interacts with in the style of the theatrical Viewpoints. As he breathes in and out, a word expands and contracts. When he lies on the floor, words fall on him like raindrops. The thrum of a nightclub matches rapid font changes.
If Running Into the Sun was a group hug, Motion Sickness is a groupchat. It’s a collage of the here and now, sometimes confusing, always captivating. A poem about transport lulls us into a meditative haze just as the AV shows the script moving like the opening title crawl from Star Wars. The only moments where the spell is broken are the ones with broken sightlines. From the back row, I miss the parts of Morse’s performance which are low to the ground. It’s a good sign that fellow audience members lean forward with me, not wanting to miss a thing.
The finale is a joy. It evokes the 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, in which a synth-backed David Byrne runs on the spot and repeats gestures to express his love for humans. a2 Company is cut from the same cloth. Morse, Leman, and Barr dance for us, and for each other, until we are up on our feet too.
The excellence of the music and AV work cannot be overstated. Both are completely intertwined with Morse’s central performance. The vibe is still apocalyptic, but this production sinks deeper into the postmodern. Motion Sickness is a multimedia work. This kind of production feels truly contemporary: this is how we communicate everywhere else, so why not on the stage too?
I implore you to see anything and everything a2 Company might come out with next. If there is such a thing anymore, they might just be the voice of their generation. Be sure to listen.
Motion Sickness reflects on how little we are as humans and how much we still matter. At one tense moment, just as we think the doomscroll is about to suffocate us, a saxophone brings us back. Right then, we hear an actual siren blaring down the street from the theatre. Morse’s impression of a bird call brings us back. We can breathe again.
Motion Sickness played at Little Andromeda 20-21 March 2026, in the final shows of the nationwide tour. You can find out more about the company here.
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