A darkly comedic, thoughtful commentary on contemporary life.
Kate Stratford
4 Stars
Venue: The Ensemble Theatre
Kirribilli Sydney
Dates: Until 18th October
The dark comedic set-up does a volte-face. Laughter becomes uneasy compassion in the audience. A woman is parachuted in to fix a corporate disaster – and we know that once she has fixed it, she will be thrown out and replaced with a man. Because that is how female capability is treated. Human beings are disposable rubbish in corporate spin. Gen Z are confused and is despair over their place in our brave new world, and only too aware of their own interchangeability. Working people are faceless and voiceless and already made disposable, their knowledge discarded. The theme of rubbish is laced throughout Eloise Snape’s new play The Elevator. But the rubbish is not just stuff. Now it is people.
CEO Margot is back at work one day after giving birth to manage a PR disaster and finds herself stuck in an AI controlled elevator with a seemingly incompetent PR assistant and one of the company’s few remaining maintenance crew. Things unravel quickly. Everyone is only six degrees of separation. And one degree away from society’s rubbish bin.
Leeanna Walsman is quintessentially CEO Margot, the woman who has had to be better than any man in the job and haunted by the knowledge there is no rest. No day off. She must always prove she is as good, if not better. It would be easy to judge her for returning to work 24 hours after giving birth and leaving her baby in NICU – but know that she would be equally judged if she didn’t. You can have it all but only if you are brilliant at all of it. Walsman’s performance is met with equal authenticity by Di Adams’ Ollie and Shirong Wu’sAlison. From her arrival, Adams bring a subtle threat to the scenario. There is always a sense of “what lies beneath” in her stillness and focus. By contrast, Wu’s jittery anxiety perfectly encapsulates the inner life of Gen Z; their issues of racial equality, the cost and uselessness of higher education, concerns with the environment and economic security and mental health.
The Elevator itself is suitably claustrophobic, enhanced by the concept that it is voice activated only. All manual control has been removed. Trapped inside an AI nightmare of our own making, herein is humanity, at the mercy of the non-human. The voice of the Elevator has a HAL (2001 A Space Odessey) quality to it. Rather than helpful, its male voice seems to be increasingly malevolent. Kelsey Lee’s set and lighting work pays off.
The scope of The Elevator is broad. It attempts to cover a lot of territory and employs a lovely dark humour to do so. But at times this attempt to do so much lacks subtlety as it sacrifices depth for repetitive imagery. We would like to know more about the three people. This is only a minor concern about weight in the script; but as an audience we like to connect with our characters.
The business of theatre companies must be to connect people through live storytelling which speaks to the core of human experience. Of course, human experience is incredibly diverse and the art is to find that connective tissue. In essence – what does it mean, what does it feel like, to be human? So whilst it is comforting and financially necessary to visit the classics, it is part of the contract with audiences to seek out and present new work by “local” writers. New ways of sparking those conversations. By presenting Eloise Snape’s new play The Ensemble Theatre’s vision meets this remit. Let’s have more of it. Box Office income notwithstanding!
photos by Prudence Upton.
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
