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This show belongs to the Adelaide Fringe 2026 season. This season is now over.

Queer performer Katherine Sortini sits on a chair against a black background, shouting with both hands gesturing mid-air, wearing a dark tracksuit and sneakers. Bold white text reads “THE DAMAGE IS DONE – katherine sortini,” with four- and five-star review lines on the left and Goodwood Theatre & Studios, Deus Ex Femina and Adelaide Fringe logos along the bottom.
Person in a navy tracksuit and maroon crop top that reads “STAX.” sits on a chair with legs crossed and raised, smiling with both arms thrown up, wearing tinted glasses and sneakers, lit by red stage light against a dark curtain backdrop.
Adelaide Fringe 2026

The Damage Is Done

When a devastating secret about her sister shatters the family equilibrium, Isadora seizes the moment to tell her own truth—certain nothing could be worse. She’s wrong. ‘The Damage is Done’ is a taut, high-voltage solo about queerness, sisterhood and the fault lines running through an Italian-Australian home. Fiercely intimate, unsentimental and darkly funny, it lays bare loyalty, shame and love—what survives, how we transform, and what love lasts once The Damage is Done. From award-winning company Deus Ex Femina (Adelaide Fringe Award winners 2022 & 2024).

★★★★★ InReview
★★★★★ Glam Adelaide
★★★★½ The Clothesline

Presented by: Deus Ex Femina

Deus Ex Femina is an award-winning South Australian independent company led by writer/performer Katherine Sortini. We make original, actor-centred theatre with bite—work that prioritises lived experience, rigorous craft and genuine representation. Our debut, All The Things I Couldn’t Say, sold out and won the Adelaide Festival Centre InSpace Award (2022). Dirty Energy followed with a sold-out Fringe season, ★★★★★ reviews and the Holden Street Theatres Award (2024). In 2025–26 we undertake Goodwood Theatre & Studios’ “Fortune Favours the Bold” residency, with projects also selected for The Mill Theatre Residency and State Theatre Company SA’s Stateside Season.
Theatre and Physical Theatre • Drama
South Australia • World Premiere
 
d/Deaf and/or Lived Experience of Disability Shows
 
Fringe Fund Recipient
Reviews
  •   5
  •   1
  •   11
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Suitability & warnings

Content rating: MA15+
Sexual Assault
Drug Use
Coarse Language: Frequent, Strong
Sexual References: Occasional, Strong
Depicts Violence: Occasional, Mild
Mental Health
Strobe Lighting

Please note

CONTENT WARNINGS Strong language and swearing Homophobia Emotional and Domestic Abuse References to child sexual abuse offences Infertility Mental health distress SENSORY NOTES Intimate performance space, closeness to performer Due to the intimate space the lights may be very bright and the sound very loud Use of strobe lighting Lights flickering (for a short time then stopping)

Accessibility

 
High audio content

Presenter

Presented by: Deus Ex Femina

Deus Ex Femina is an award-winning South Australian independent company led by writer/performer Katherine Sortini. We make original, actor-centred theatre with bite—work that prioritises lived experience, rigorous craft and genuine representation. Our debut, All The Things I Couldn’t Say, sold out and won the Adelaide Festival Centre InSpace Award (2022). Dirty Energy followed with a sold-out Fringe season, ★★★★★ reviews and the Holden Street Theatres Award (2024). In 2025–26 we undertake Goodwood Theatre & Studios’ “Fortune Favours the Bold” residency, with projects also selected for The Mill Theatre Residency and State Theatre Company SA’s Stateside Season.

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