‘Algorithms are tearing us apart’: local playwright explores the killing of a right-wing pundit
Adelaide writer Alex Vickery-Howe’s new play about political polarisation became unexpectedly prescient after the shooting of American right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last month.
“I have this weird, horrible habit of writing things that come true,” playwright Alex Vickery-Howe tells InReview.
A few years ago, Vickery-Howe wrote a play about the “far-fetched” premise that a novel disease might make the jump from animals to humans and cause all kinds of chaos.
“I wouldn’t say I predicted Covid,” he says wryly. “[But] this can kind of happen, where you write something, and then the ground shifts under you, and you suddenly go, ‘Oh, everything that was speculative now feels like it’s after the fact’.”
That play, Watchlist, was eventually mounted at The Bakehouse Theatre in 2021 to glowing reviews – “an ambitious comedy with a sharp message,” wrote InReview’s Murray Bramwell at the time.
Now, Vickery-Howe is about to unveil a new work, Triggered, that arrives later this month with more uncomfortable prescience following the shooting of American conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in October.
“The play opens with a gunshot,” Vickery-Howe explains.
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Its target is a right-wing provocateur and foil to the play’s other lead, a very online left-wing journalist.
Initially written last year, the premise was inspired by the Vickery-Howe’s own experience writing online opinion columns for progressive outlets.
“Since about 2021 I’ve been writing articles for various places like Independent Australia and New Matilda,” he says, “Very outspoken and very partisan.”
When one outlet – which Vickery-Howe declines to name – asked him to file a piece he felt was ridiculing Trump supporters, he began to consider what he was actually adding to the discourse.
Over a coffee with Mitchell Butel, the former State Theatre Company South Australia artistic director, an idea began to take root.
“I said, ‘I want to write about political polarisation, and I want to write about the algorithm sort of wrenching us apart. And I want to question my own role in that process, because obviously, if you’re writing partisan op eds, you’re feeding into that white noise. I started asking myself, ‘Am I a good person, or is this a contribution that’s deeply unhelpful?’”
Triggered uses multiple timelines to explore events before and after that opening gunshot, as Vickery-Howe pits a leftwing online journalist nicknamed ‘Good Mike’ against a right-wing comedian named ‘Rhino’.
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In a series of interviews that take place prior to the shooting, Mike and Rhino pick apart eachother’s worldviews and blindspots as their lives grow more entangled. In the aftermath’s of Rhino’s shooting, Mike is left to contemplate his own culpability.
“The play, ultimately, is trying to present all of these different perspectives, but encourage what I would call real empathy… you know, when you actually look at the world through someone’s eyes, or try and understand your own blind spots. And no one ever quite wins, because I really hate plays that preach to an audience.”
At 1pm on Sunday November 23 Triggered will be mounted in a one-afternoon-only staged reading at The Odeon Theatre in Norwood. Directed by Maeve Mhairi MacGregor with a full cast including Matt Crook (Top End Wedding), Jamie Hornsby, Grace Akimana, Patrick Frost, Jacqy Phillips and Noah Byrne, it’s the first of six new plays to be presented from November 23 to December 7 as part of State Theatre Company’s Great Australian Bites series. Other productions include Culture Slap from Alexis West, Spare a Thought for Jana Wendt (23 November), and Anthony Nocera’s Log Boy (December 7) – the latter already slated to make its mainstage appearance as part of State Theatre’s 2026 season.
“I think it’s great that you’ve got a bunch of Adelaide writers who are getting a chance to throw something out there,” Vickery-Howe says of the initiative, which will see local actors work through each play script-in-hand.
Someday, however, he does hope to see Triggered get a full production. “It’s fantastic to have development opportunities, but the question for the state is how to turn development into production. But it’s also very hard for artistic directors, because they’ve got big theatres to fill.”
As for the coincidence of Kirk’s assassination at a Utah university campus?
“My phone exploded, not just because I’m writing this play, but because everyone has an opinion – and everyone’s really fierce about their opinion,” Vickery-Howe reflects. “If he came to a campus where I was teaching, I would obviously have things to say. But I don’t think shooting someone is ever the answer.
"My phone exploded, not just because I’m writing this play, but because everyone has an opinion – and everyone’s really fierce about their opinion."
“But it just scares me that any flashpoint like that, we almost have a pre-ordered point of view – we’re not actually responding to what’s in front of us. And it’s not a big headline to say, ‘Well, algorithms are tearing us apart’, but I don’t know if, day to day, we really think about just how much that is happening.”
Vickery-Howe says he’s a little nervous to present what he once thought was “very firmly in the realm of fiction”.
“Now I feel like, bizarrely, we need to put a trigger warning on a play called Triggered because it’s sort of brushed against reality,” he reflects.
“I should write more romantic comedies, I think.”
Triggered by Alex Vickery-Howe will be performed at Odeon Theatre on Sunday November 23, 1pm, as part of Great Australian Bites presented by State Theatre Company South Australia