REVIEW: Katie is a Marker Sniffing Lesbian - East and Under Theatre, Backbone

Katie is a Marker Sniffing Lesbian

Presented by Backbone Theatre as part of the Look Up Festival

Created by East and Under Theatre Company

Playwright / Set & Costume Designer: Ada Lukin

Director: Indiah Morris

Producer / Lighting Designer: Madelyne Leite

“Brand new week, same criminal life. I can hardly remember what it’s like to be a loser.”

There are few things more terrifying than being seventeen in a Catholic school blazer. Then there is being seventeen, queer, academically gifted, slightly lame… and running a glow-in-the-dark sharpie drug empire from the school bathrooms.

Katie is a Marker Sniffing Lesbian is a fiercely funny coming-of-age play about ambition, obsession, reputation, and the quiet panic of not fitting into the box you were told to live inside. It is theatre built by women, fuelled by dark humour, and powered by the kind of high school stakes that feel like life or death when you are in them.

Katie is on track to becoming school dux. Straight A’s. Writing assignments for cash. Socially awkward... When she began selling faulty glow-in-the-dark Sharpies from her Officeworks job, (with fumes that happen to give students a temporary high), what starts out as a low-stakes side hustle quickly spirals into something much bigger. Friendships blur. Gossip spreads. Hallucinations of Florence Nightingale appear.

From the instant Ada Lukin emerged through an actual hole in the theatre wall and climbed down a ladder into the Ron Hurley Theatre, (which I had somehow never noticed before), I could tell this was going to be clever, unexpected, and a little rebellious. Ada carried this piece with astonishing presence. As playwright, designer, and lead actor, the voice of the show was unmistakably hers. Witty, sharp, self-aware, and unexpectedly tender. Ada plays Katie as the classic endearing, over-eager dork who is desperate to be cool. Ada's asides to the audience were swift and surgically funny, and even her tiniest facial expressions landed huge laughs. The narration style felt conversational AND confessional. It felt like we were not just watching her spiral, we were inside her brain. In the quieter moments her performance really landed. The panic attacks, the paranoia fuelled by the fumes, the heartbreak of being outed. I was completely riveted.

Madelyne Leite as Miranda played the intimidating queen bee. The girl with dirt on everyone. Introduced like a storm cloud, Leite played her with authority, but there were flickers of vulnerability underneath the manipulation. We all knew a Miranda in high school. Her performance balanced dominance with cracks of insecurity like: “I think I need to see a therapist or something.” I did occasionally wish her vocal projection cut through the music a little more clearly, but her character work was sharp and specific.

Alisha O’Brien as Lydia, the golden netball captain who is always busy, felt like the emotional heart of the piece. Her chemistry with Ada was electric and had the audience squealing and kicking their feet. The small talk about netball, (Katie’s painfully awkward version of flirting), was both hilarious and achingly sweet. The romance felt fluttery, nervous, and very real. Alisha's monologue venting about girls and pressure was a standout moment. Beneath the sporty exterior was a young woman buckling under parental expectation and the weight of constant achievement.

Ellen Hardisty’s Florence Nightingale apparition added a streak of magical realism. It was absurd and hilarious, yet thematically clever, especially given the school assignment and the question quietly sitting underneath it all: Was Florence Nightingale gay?! Her role as the teacher leaned into chaotic adult hypocrisy. One of my favourite theatrical moments was the teacher using the classroom projector, only for us to see every open tab on her laptop: Tinder, BuzzFeed articles, unhinged Google searches. It was wickedly funny and a perfect example of how this production layered humour without overplaying it.

The script by Ada Lukin captured the intensity of high school life. The way gossip can spread like wildfire. The way reputation feels permanent. The way ambition can morph into unhealthy obsession. Plus, the Catholic undertones were ever-present. The pressure to conform. The fear of being seen as “wrong.” Sniffing the marker became more than rebellion. It was courage in a sniff. Or maybe delusion in fluorescent ink. They became status symbols, weapons, and metaphors.

The set (also by Ada) was a simple school dunny, a makeshift classroom, and a projection setup. Under Madelyne Leite’s lighting design, especially the bold use of blue and black lights, it genuinely glowed. The unsettling, Wii-like soundscape paired with bursts of club music when the girls got high created a sensory shift that mirrored everyone's spiralling minds. The giggling euphoria gave way to paranoia, nausea, and panic.

Indiah Morris’ direction allowed absurdity and honesty to coexist without either overpowering the other. When Katie was outed, the shift in the room was palpable. The audience, who had been laughing all night, went completely still. That is the magic of this piece. It was riotously funny, but it knew exactly when to land the emotional punch. Transitions were slick. The choreography was chaotic in the best way. Blocking was purposeful. The pacing never lagged for me. If anything, I would have happily stayed in this world longer. The audience was hooked, reacting audibly to every aside, every reveal, every twist. That kind of collective energy in the theatre is rare and so rewarding.

Katie is a Marker Sniffing Lesbian exploded the neat little box of Catholic schoolgirl expectation and replaced it with glowing ink, panic attacks, queer longing, and Florence Nightingale. It is theatre for anyone who has ever felt like the odd one out in a school blazer. I would watch it again in a heartbeat.