Theatre / Happy Meals, Happy Kids, written and directed by Jade Breen. At The Q until March 9. Reviewed by SIMONE PENKETHMAN. 

A group of young people meet in a squalid and abandoned fast food restaurant to complete a group assignment.

Their topic is: disprove government plans to eliminate organic matter and reclaim planet earth for mining production.

In this dystopian future, familiar tensions and conflicts between different personalities in the group abound. 

The six actors all deliver committed and energetic performances.

Emery the over-achiever (Katie Bissett) is armed with a task list and a somewhat anachronistic Macquarie Dictionary.

Esra (Joshua James) is the chaotic kid who once worked in the same fast-food restaurant.

Sye (Zoe Ross) is the archetypal sick child – isolated, distressed and anxious.

Happy Meals, Happy Kids is the debut play by local playwright and director Jade Breen. 

It’s a passionate work that is rich with ideas. It’s also wordy and dialogue driven, as is common among younger writers.

It’s hard to pinpoint the age and level of study of the students. This confusion can be distracting at times. 

There are references to the school climate strikes of 2019, a happier time when a day off school was enough of a reason to protest.

Someone mentions having been being in first year university. Then there’s a darker allusion to a scene in Garema Place that brings the Tiananmen Square massacre to mind.

Ros Hall’s set design is both creepy and outstanding. Sen McNamara’s costumes are elegantly simple, evoking a school uniform that each character wears in different ways.  

The young people try different ways to present their assignment: a testament, a debate and an interpretive dance.

The dance sequence is a high point, showing the beautiful exuberance of people escaping their thoughts and ideas to enjoy being present in their bodies. 

The ending is stark and powerful – a satisfying conclusion for Breen’s ambitious debut.