Every year mil­lions of women and chil­dren around the world are traf­ficked and trapped in sexu­al exploit­a­tion. Using stor­ies of real sur­viv­ors, Out of Dark­ness presen­ted by the Just Be Col­lect­ive, fol­lows the emo­tion­al jour­ney of Alice as she is traf­ficked into sexu­al exploit­a­tion and then res­cued and restored to find her way back to free­dom.

Lead act­ress and cre­at­or Jess Brownell plays Alice, while James Bayliss plays mul­tiple and con­trast­ing male roles. Ivan Palezevic accom­pan­ies the phys­ic­al theatre per­form­ance with nar­ra­tion and Alida Steem­son dir­ects.

The con­vin­cing move­ments from the leads almost tell the story alone as you’re instantly taken in by con­front­ing scenes of Alice’s life, a cred­it to Jess and James for their express­ive per­form­ances. The sound and light­ing defines the scene and mood changes, while the nar­ra­tion gives fur­ther con­text to the story as it unfolds.

Out of Dark­ness tells a story of sal­va­tion, but the Just Be Col­lect­ive acknow­ledges that it’s not the real­ity for most of the women and chil­dren trapped in the sex trade and will be donat­ing all pro­ceeds from the premi­er sea­son to Des­tiny Res­cue. A nice touch as the per­form­ance will leave you won­der­ing what you can do to help.

Out of Dark­ness is on at BATS Theatre from 10–13 Feb as part of the Fringe Fest­iv­al.