In 2011, four Australian playwrights travelled to Manila to collaborate with site-specific experimental theatre company The Sipat Lawin Ensemble. Together, they produced a stage adaptation of the Japanese pulp thriller Battle Royale.

The resulting show exploded through social and international media, breaking attendance records in the Philippines and was attended by the likes of Reuters, CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera. Described as both a pop-culture smash and a dangerous work of glossy, hedonistic pulp-violence, had the craze of kids killing kids gone too far? Was it reckless to produce such a work in a country where teenagers the same age as our characters are being dragged in to a civil war? How did the cast feel about being idolised as sadistic mass-murderers?

In 2013, Australian company Too Many Weapons responded to these questions with Kids Killing Kids, a sellout show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Now for the third time, the subject of this controversial Australian-Filipino co-production is revisited for the Next Wave Festival 2014.

Part narrative, part documentary theatre, A Wake presents the Filipino company’s perspective on their explosive coproduction. Through a combination of live performance, interview footage, personal stories and open discussion, A Wake examines the qualities of cross-cultural collaboration, contemporary Filipino culture and the nature of onstage violence.