‘Waterloo’ is modern day theatre from clever performance artist, Bron Batten, a multi award-winning Australian performer, theatre-maker and producer, in collaboration with non-artists and audience members. (Outside Eye Direction by Gary Abrahams.)
From the people who created ‘Onstage Dating’, ‘Waterloo’ turns their observations inward, exposing us to Bron Batten’s ill-fated affair and deconstructing the ideological distance between right and left.
This unique show explores what happens when a self-confessed “lefty, Greens voting, almost vegan theatre artist” dates a right-wing, cigar smoking Margaret Thatcher-loving Tory soldier. Batten met this “2nd protagonist” when she was on an arts residency in Paris in 2015 – and he turned out to be a conservative, highly decorated, high-ranking UK military official. Clearly, they had different political views yet found an intense connection and their time together formed the core narrative of Waterloo.
Batten tells us this story as one would tell a friend about her unlikely romance, a couple obviously drawn to each other in ways just as unknown as the violence we bury our heads in the sand about daily. With her warmth, creativity and truthfulness, often heavy themes of love, war and politics prove easier to digest than they first sound.
Developed in Maubourguet France, with Vitalstatistix Incubator Residency in Adelaide, a creative residency at Brunswick Mechanic’s Institute, Melbourne, with an Arts House Development Award and North Melbourne Stalker Residency, and then at Melbourne Fringe in 2019, while still morphing, this edgy piece has won awards in Melbourne and Perth and won the Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe Touring Award, in 2019.
You’ll find Waterloo strangely entertaining and thought provoking. You’ll be thinking on it for days afterward, even questioning your usual beliefs. As the daughter of a Lieutenant Colonel, my beliefs seemed lonely in a room full of students and Arts workers, but Batten wrote her questions to the audience so well, I’m sure they were also surprised at some of the final audience views.
Batten said in a recent interview she “Hoped the work would provoke reflection and discussion amongst the audience and perhaps a healthy debate in the car on the way home.” I believe her hopes have become reality.
That’s the beauty of Waterloo. Moments of divisiveness lead to moments of poignant clarity, followed by moments of humanity and the realisation we are all connected and desire human connection.
This production is not only enjoyable, it’s important, giving those of us on both sides of politics a safe space to debate our differences, respectfully.
Bron’s work has toured throughout Australia, New Zealand, the USA, France, the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Romania and has been presented at festivals and venues including The Soho Theatre London, Summerhall Edinburgh, Komedia Brighton UK, The Prague Quadrennial, Performing Arts Festival Berlin, RISING, Darwin Festival, Brisbane Festival, Dark MOFO and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Founded in 1979, Theatre Works is an independent theatre group with a lot to say. Check it out. Waterloo plays at Theatre Works – 14 Acland Street, St Kilda – from 8th to 12th July, 2025.
To book tickets to Waterloo, please visit http://theatreworks.org.au/2025/waterloo.
Photographer: Lucy Parakhina
