Welcome to the Internet is an interesting piece of performance theatre that is clear to anyone. A very daring piece that seeks to ask, but not necessarily answer a lot of questions about our present culture of internet expression, and the lines we cross when seemingly anon.

Adelaide actor and creative Abbey Dale is the mind behind this quite twisted work of performance art, tapped in to the Bo Burnham, Gen Z, barely fringe corners of the internet that I’m sure some of the older members of the audience would have found as shocking, but is blaise to those who’ve spent 5 minutes of Elon Musk’s twitter-hellscape. As I said, Abby seeks to ask the questions about why we do what we do on the internet; why even the guise of anonymity causes us to act out in the way that we do through a series of scripted and themed vignettes surrounding different thematic aspects of internet culture.

And there is a lot going on – there is a strong reliance on technical aspects that mostly hit the mark but occasionally lighting and sound cues were delayed momentarily, resulting in issues with hitting key punchlines, but this was a minor issue that was definitely corrected as the show went on. One other pertinent issue that I feel I want to raise is, and I must stress that certainly I almost couldn’t tell whether they were plants helping to drive the performance in this direction or whether they were really the most incredibly incredibly disrespectful audience members, but Dale had to consistently put members of the audience back in their place because they were heckling and talking throughout the entire performance. If they were audience members, some of whom were wearing FRINGE ARTIST PASSES, I would have nothing but disgust for the way they treated this work.

Why I suggest that it’s even plausible they could’ve been planted, expressly guiding and driving the actor is because their AWFUL behaviour almost lent in to the deeply uncomfortable environment that Dale creates, especially as this piece winds further and further into darker corners of the internet and asks further questions about what we do and why we do it. If they weren’t plants and Dale was truly working off the cuff to put these people back in their place firstly 100% props to her because they would not stop, but also 100% props to her weaving their outbursts into her work, and by the end completely silencing them with this sense of unease as the work unfolded.

Dale doesn’t answer every question she asks, and I don’t believe she intends to, leaving the audience to ask themselves how they feel about what they’ve seen. It is a work that still feels like it is growing and evolving, and one that could be taken even a step further if Dale really drills into some of the questions about the blurred lines between the marketplace of ideas and the marketplace for bodies – the line between a physical “cookie”, accepting of which permits the artist to interact with you, and the thematic food aspect of the later vignettes wasn’t lost on me, but a deeper exploration of this link could have pushed this deep unease ever further – but as it stands, it is a work of art that seeks to provoke. What it provokes is up to you.