Assembly Rooms
Four stars
God probably isn't the answer for at least one prisoner in this electrifying new play by American writer Lev Steinberg, who at just seventeen makes a ferocious debut. Exactly what the question is remains a mystery to the four strangers thrown together in a cage after being kidnapped. None of them know why they were taken away seemingly without cause or who each other is, but with their lives on the line, conflict between them is inevitable.
Given America’s current state of play one might think Steinberg’s set-up relates to the fallout of some of the country’s more brutal invasions of civil liberties. As it is, things take a less obvious turn, as the four captives are told by those watching them that they have just 44 minutes to decide which of them is to be sacrificed for some higher cause.
As an LED clock counts down the seconds, just what that cause is exactly isn’t clear to any of them, alas, as they try to make sense of it all. For the shopkeeper, the student and the ex cop, it’s suddenly as much a life and death situation as it is for the beatific looking guy already writhing on the floor in pain. Who gets a Get Out of Jail Free card, however, is anybody’s guess.
With a cast loaded up with considerable TV pedigrees, Michael DeFilippis’ production feels as old school off-off Broadway as it gets in a blistering double bluff of a show. This initially recalls Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit by way of filmmaker Peter Watkins’ studies of violence as both dystopian experiment and mass entertainment in Punishment Park. Here, however, Steinberg takes things further, with the on stage quartet of John Billingsley, Dorian Missick, Christopher Ryan and Matthew Petrick pulling no punches in their delivery.
The result is a relentless hour that takes a furious look at the morality of justice, as well as the pains and punishments of confinement, where sometimes revenge is the only option on offer.
Until 30 Aug, 9.05pm.
The Herald, August
ends
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