Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Three stars
Three stars
For anyone reading this,
chances are all information, data or opinion that follows will
already have been documented and archived somewhere we may not know
about. Likewise for the show itself, an hour-long dramatic dissection
of surveillance culture past, present and future, presented here by
Proto-type Theatre with input from several producing partners,
including Tramway, Glasgow. Maybe that's why the two young women who
greet the audience in the Tron's bunker-like Changing House space are
wearing pink, Pussy Riot style balaclavas. As they peer out from
behind a desk loaded with notes, their hidden faces are enlarged on
the screen next to them by way of a live video feed.
As with the overload
of information that follows, once the masks are off, identities are
revealed alongside a life-hack's worth of leaks. The show's devisers
and performers Rachel Baynton and Gillian Lees move from the Cold War
to 9/11 and beyond without ever quite giving the game away. With a
title drawn from Edward Snowdon and a script pulled together by
Andrew Westerside and the company, the pair
nevertheless still manage to unveil a very secret history. In
collusion with Adam York Gregory's text-heavy video projections and
an electronic underscore by Paul J Rogers, this reveals a digital age
where every click, text and email is recorded, saved and stored.
In what at times
resembles a dramatised
TED talk, this barrage of facts and figures might well be dismissed
as the stuff of paranoid science-fiction conspiracy theories. As the
evidence stacks up, however, the truth of Baynton and Lee's high-tech
show-and-tell is very clearly out there.
The Herald, April 17th 2017
ends
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