45 minutes to decide who lives and who dies, and the audience is very much complicit in these life-and-death decisions. It's a clever idea, but it needs better execution.
Rating
Good!
A research scientist (Mary Kathryn Brown) introduces herself as she waits for her five test participants to arrive. We’re left in little doubt that we, the audience, are willing participants in whatever is about to happen. Given the the show blurb says that five people are about to enter and only one gets to leave, it’s fairly clear we’re about to observe something rather unethical.
As one by one the unsuspecting lab rats arrive, each offers a very distinct character. We meet Piper (Grace Hoy), aloof, almost bored before things even begin, there’s optimistic, excitable Nia (Zakiya Hall), happy but nervous Eliana (Magda Riha), the rather confident and self-important Lonnie (Sam Wade) and finally, and rather late to proceedings, Brooke (Paris Finch). Formalities over, they are each given a pill to swallow, and only then told that it will kill them in 45 minutes’ time. Except one will be allowed to live if they can agree on which one it should be. With that, the 45 minutes commence, and the large digital clock over their heads starts to tick down second by second.
As a concept, it’s a great idea, one that should tackle not just the moralities of the experiment but delve into human nature and question whether it’s possible to place one life above another; it’s the trolley experiment in its ultimate guise. So we are left to see how they react and whether they can agree that someone else’s life is more important than their own.
It begins well, as if they are going through the five stages of grief; at first, denial, as they laugh it off as a psychological experiment, the pill obviously a placebo. But as they begin to fall ill, they move on to anger; angry at the researcher for what she has done to them. Next comes bargaining as each starts to lay out their reasons as to why they are more important than the rest, and so should be allowed to live.
There’s so much here that could be further developed; the final two stages of depression and acceptance could easily be fitted into their behaviour. But the show fails to delve deep enough. Instead, the audience is brought into the conversation once more, clever in making us complicit but without enough context to allow us to make informed choices about what we are asked.
There are also some strange decisions taken. There is a sudden admission of rule-breaking that is meant to shake things up but falls flat, and a countdown that never gets close to zero before things are concluded, rendering it utterly pointless. I assume the time is a medical thing and the poison administered actually does kill in 45 minutes, but if so, surely then you should make full use of the time? Tension could be generated by letting it tick down, maybe a booming voice ringing out every five minutes to make us aware that their time is dwindling, so leaving the five, and us, knowing that if no decision is made soon, all will die? There’s no reason that the timer couldn’t be speeded up slightly to ensure it gets closer to zero before the show concludes. There seem so many options to ramp up the tension that would leave us feeling nervous about what is going to happen as it reaches zero.
But without such tension and jeopardy, come the end we feel nothing; no regret in our involvement, no care for who may live or die: nothing. Which is a shame, because it feels as if there is so much to draw from the initial opening; it just needs to be used better.
Written & Directed by Katie Gaven
Produced and Tech by Jake Bryant
Lighting Design by Miles Goldsmith
Sound Design by Will Stolze
Fight Choreography by Daniel Adams
Presented by Wilison Labs
00:45:00 plays at theSpace @ Venue 45 until Friday 28 August for EdFringe
