The young James Graham is a force to be reckoned
with when it comes to script writing, with his last play, This House, garnering much critical acclaim.
His latest
offering, Privacy, currently showing
at The Donmar is equally
accomplished and certainly different.
The uniqueness
of the play becomes apparent on entering The
Donmar when everyone is asked to keep their mobile phones switched on, albeit in silent mode, and are
handed a laminated sheet parodying aeroplane safety instruction cards. And it doesn’t end there. The back wall of the stage is turned into a
giant screen, which eventually allows us to see what the young man sitting upstage
right is plugging into his computer.
This turns out to be a very useful device in visually explaining the
techno bits of the play, of which there are several. It also soon becomes apparent that we, the
audience will spend part of the evening interacting with the actors on stage. Curiouser
and curiouser.
Privacy, cleverly directed by Jose
Rourke, is very topical, dealing as it does with the way we voluntarily
upload loads of information about ourselves on a daily basis, often not
realizing what this can and does mean. Big Brother in Internet form. So far, so spooky, especially when various
facts are highlighted of which I for one knew nothing. And so thought provoking because of course
security is of the utmost importance since 9/11 but at what cost to our
privacy?
James Graham tackles this tricky subject by centering his play round
a self-effacing playwright with relationship hang-ups who needs to ask
questions in order to write the play he’s being badgered to write. During the course of the evening he
encounters journalists, politicians, lawyers, defenders of civil liberties and
the like, variously played by members of the cast. Their thoughts on the threat posed by the
omnipresent scrutiny of us all via social media, regular internet shopping etc
is for the most part verbatim and sometimes tricky to comprehend. But, despite the seriousness of the subject
under discussion, the play does possess a lightness of touch and is, at times,
hugely entertaining.
The
entertainment factor is cranked up by the casting of the excellent Gunnar Cauthery, Paul Chahidi, Jonathan
Coy, Joshua McGuire, Nina Sosanya and Michelle
Terry. They skillfully switch
between characters, real and imagined and Lucy
Osborne’s clever techno screen works a treat.
The final piece
of audience participation takes place during the final few minutes of the play
when we’re sworn to secrecy about something we’ve seen. And that’s all I’m going to say.
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