REVIEW: A Drop Too Many - Backbone Festival

A Drop Too Many

Presented by Backbone Festival

Written and directed by Maxi Mossman

Co-writer: Peyton Hutchins

Stage Manager and Costume Designer: Paige Elms

Sound Designer: Andrew Oxford

Lighting Designer: Caleb Bartlett

Video Designer: Lani Dwyer

Cast: Angela Barnard, Connor Costin, Ally Marie Wilson, Liam Linane, and Anabella Gregory

Photography: Ulf Yeh (@ulfs_photography)

Date Attended: 8 October 2026

"Do we swim against the pull or just let go?"

I recall the four-minute shower timers, saving water in buckets, my unusual interest in the weather forecast as a child, and the silent judgement directed at anyone caught using a sprinkler or hose. Growing up in Brisbane during the Millennium Drought, these restrictions were part of daily life. After watching A Drop Too Many at Backbone Festival, I realised how much of that childhood has been lingering in my memory, waiting for someone to bring it up.

Written and directed by Maxi Mossman, with co-writer Peyton Hutchins, A Drop Too Many examines Australia's complicated relationship with water. Inspired by the 2022 floods across South-East Queensland and Northern NSW, the production draws on real community experiences. Stories of hardship, resilience, and human connection unfold through verbatim testimony, poetry, and physical theatre. First presented at Anywhere Festival in 2023, the work has since evolved through Backbone's HUB Residency, bringing the Australian bush indoors to the Ron Hurley Theatre.

A desolate patch of Australian bushland greets us. Brown dust covers the ground, a bare tree stands among barrels and buckets, and newspapers lie scattered around. The predominantly beige and white costumes by Paige Elms look as though they've absorbed the dust themselves. There isn't a speck of greenery in sight.

Emerging from the darkness, performers crawl and contort across the dirt with distorted expressions. Their limbs twitch and jolt as though they're receiving electric shocks, and their movements wouldn't look out of place in The Walking Dead… It's an unsettling introduction to the ensemble's physical storytelling. Throughout the production, the five performers shift between characters, narrators, and representations of the natural elements. Bodies tumble and intertwine, demonstrating considerable strength, control, and trust in one another.

We begin with the droughts of the early 2000s. Angela Barnard and Ally Marie Wilson recount the familiar routines of a water-conscious household. I found myself mentally ticking off each one. Timed showers? Check. Prickly dead grass? Check. An intense obsession with the weather forecast? Check.

I vividly remember the restrictions from ages seven to eleven, but I'd started to wonder whether my childhood imagination had exaggerated the severity. Hearing these experiences described onstage reminded me that these experiences (endless dry days, constant conservation, excitement over potential rainfall) were shared by an entire generation. Maxi and Peyton's script is rich in these recognisable details, capturing the peculiar routines that emerged when every drop of water was precious.

"When you're five and the world is still so new, no one tells you this isn't normal."

Dialogue fractures between all five performers, with phrases passed back and forth in quick succession. Their precise timing creates the impression of multiple memories being recalled at once. Even the silence of drought is noted. No birdsong, no sprinklers, no cicadas, no lawnmowers… Andrew Oxford's sound design moves between this eerie stillness and a rich soundscape of birds, insects, rainfall, rushing water, and historical news reports.

"Too many days exactly the same... Hoping it will get better next week, next month, next year."

And then, finally, the rain arrives. The group's reaction is childlike. Faces turn skyward, bodies freeze in delight, and tongues stretch out to catch imaginary droplets. Their poses loosen and they start dancing as the pattering sounds develop into a downpour. After so much drought, the sense of relief spreads among them like a contagion. I can practically smell that glorious scent of rain hitting the parched earth.

But Australia's rainfall has never been particularly good at moderation… What was once a landscape desperate for moisture is suddenly drowning in it. Caleb Bartlett's lighting design trades bright oranges and fiery reds for deep, saturated blues. Lani Dwyer's video projections flash images of rain, inland tsunami, cyclone, and flooding. Combined with Andrew's soundscape, these elements transform the modest theatre into a hostile, waterlogged environment.

One of the production's most inventive choices is its use of translucent plastic sheeting to depict water. Initially, it ripples gently across the stage, but as the flooding intensifies, it rises and thrashes around the performers, swallowing their bodies beneath its surface. Anabella Gregory spends a disconcerting amount of time underneath the material (could you breathe?!). Watching the lightweight plastic billow and twist around the ensemble is mesmerising, its movement evoking the overwhelming force of the inland tsunami that tore through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley.

Strobing lights accentuate the violence of the floodwaters as the group battles the current. Liam Linane's frantic attempts to "swim" to safety capture the exhausting futility of fighting water that refuses to release you. Performers cling to one another and scramble for higher safety. The bare tree becomes a beacon, a sanctuary. Illuminated with colour from within, its trunk glows against the surrounding darkness.

The accounts of the 2011 Brisbane floods are uncomfortably familiar. At fifteen, I was old enough to grasp the danger but too young to understand the enormous burden placed on my family. Through personal recollections and archival recordings, we're reminded of the sudden evacuations, SES volunteers who appeared like superheroes, and the extraordinary mobilisation of Brisbane's Mud Army. I remember watching people arrive from everywhere, armed with shovels, buckets, and a determination to help us. The water may eventually recede, but the mud of the Brisbane River remains. My home was unrecognisable, belongings were contaminated or floated away, and treasured possessions disappeared beneath layers of debris.

"Memories are scattered throughout the mud."

Moving beyond Brisbane, the production also examines rural communities, where drought endangers livelihoods and natural disasters threaten lives. Connor Costin delivers a powerfully confronting portrayal of a farmer driven to despair. His frustration escalates into anger as he describes starving animals, mounting financial burdens, and the agonising responsibility of euthanising livestock to prevent further suffering. Even the toughest farmer has a breaking point, and Connor's strained physicality exposes the exhaustion beneath his character's fury. It's an important perspective on the emotional and financial toll that rarely receive the same attention as those affecting our cities.

Anabella Gregory provides a scientific perspective, swiftly and thoroughly explaining how El Niño and La Niña influence Australia's weather patterns. Her exchanges with Liam Linane offer a reprieve from the heavier material. They share a physical duet in which his excessively clingy behaviour continually interrupts her explanations. It's like attempting to deliver a serious class presentation while your partner insists on using you as a climbing frame.

The storytelling has a collage-like quality, moving between personal recollections, scientific explanations, recorded testimony, and abstract movement. Announcement of newspaper headlines paint a picture of a country perpetually bracing for the next climatic emergency. Exaggerated slow-motion movement turns a family sitting together and drinking water into an almost ceremonial occasion. Ally and Connor's swinging, circular arm movements look like an impromptu rain dance, as though they might summon a change in the weather through sheer willpower.

Despite its confronting depictions of loss, A Drop Too Many is equally interested in the care Australians offer one another in a crisis. The final scenes replace isolated suffering with physical connection. Arms wrap around shoulders, performers support one another's weight, and the ensemble gathers around the tree that has weathered so much alongside them.

I find A Drop Too Many fascinating and deeply beautiful. Its portrayal of the Millennium Drought had me reliving childhood memories I hadn't revisited in years. The flood sequences recalled the fear, heartbreak, and astonishing generosity I witnessed firsthand. I feel an intimate connection to these stories, right down to the smallest details. I wasn't expecting a piece of physical theatre to bring so much of my own history rushing back.

Maxi and the ensemble have created a visually inventive and physically demanding production that understands the contradictions of living in Queensland. We spend years desperately wishing for rain, only to find ourselves pleading for it to stop. There's beauty in the way this production portrays both the ferocity of our landscape and the tenderness of the people living within it. I connected with A Drop Too Many more deeply than I anticipated, and I left with an overwhelming appreciation for the communities who continue to pick themselves up, clean off the mud, and help their neighbours do the same.