Sydney’s old Quarantine Station has been reincarnated as Q Station, with the high-tech Defiance as its centrepiece. Billed as an immersive theatrical experience, Defiance tells the story of erstwhile inmates, and questions how we would handle a pandemic in the future.

There’s something unnerving about visiting a luxury facility built on a site where people used to be interred against their will, more often than not dying in a horrific manner. Carlton Lamb’s production takes us through some of the highlights, for want of a better word. Dealing with three major epidemics (Smallpox in 1881, Bubonic Plague in 1901, Spanish Influenza in 1918) is an ambitious project. Being able to do this on the actual site is a remarkable opportunity, one that could easily be messed up. I entered the laundry, the setting for act one, with some trepidation, dreading some sort of kitschy Universal Studios Tour experience.

As it turned out, Defiance isn’t quite as “authentic” or “immersive” as the blurb implies – audience participation is mercifully kept to a minimum, and you can’t escape the fact that the hospital (a quick hike uphill for the second act) was rebuilt from the ground up after a fire in 2003. Nevertheless, the experience is revealing and entertaining, thanks in no small part to some beautifully realised projections devised by Allan Hirons, sets that are in complete harmony with the site, thanks to designer Peter Ashman, and some remarkable performances.

Berynn Schwerdt is the standout of the show. Perhaps the most “immersive” aspect of Defiance is the way he so completely becomes a character. The other cast members are wonderful, smoothly switching between characters and accents without a hitch. Rebekah Moore is particularly memorable as John Rendell Strait, the judge conducting the royal commission into the disastrous mishandling of the smallpox outbreak. Lucy Miller is mostly confined to motherly roles, exuding a warm and comforting presence. Damian Rice gives assured performances as everything from desperate father to returned WWI veteran.

Defiance is at its best when it sticks to telling the story through these characters. There are some weak points, particularly the closing scene, when the whole thing suddenly sinks into a morass of melodrama and bathos. Not even the impressive technology behind the image of an eagle flying around and interacting with the actors can distract from the sheer awfulness of these final few minutes.

The occasional interruptions by a deep-voiced narrator who chucks in a few facts and figures are problematic. I understand that Defiance is supposed to be informative as well as entertaining, as this is an aspect of Sydney’s history that isn’t always given prominence. But these booming interruptions are jarring and go against the whole “immersive” vibe.

I came away feeling a little ambivalent, but ultimately Defiance is a positive experience. Given the competing needs to inform and entertain audiences while preserving the heritage-listed site, Carlton Lamb and his team have probably come up with close to the best possible outcome.