Theatre Reviews: The Employees; Kyoto
From the West Midlands to Outer Space via Warsaw
For this week’s reviews, I bring you a slice of Polish sci-fi you can no longer see and I throw my mind back to last year and talk about an excellent RSC show that has transferred down from Shakespeare-land to the horrendously named @sohoplace.
The Employees - Southbank Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hall
Łukasz Twarkowski director
Olga Ravn author
Bogusława Sochańska translation from Danish
Joanna Bednarczyk text adaptation, dramaturgy
2 hours 40 minutes
I was hesitant to buy a ticket to The Employees. It was in Polish with subtitles but was also unallocated seating – neither a problem on their own but combined sounded intimidating and inaccessible. There was also the fact that the show is an adaptation of Olga Ravn’s novel which - like so, so, so, so many books - I own but haven’t read yet. Also, the tickets were far from cheap and the impact of the Boxing Day sales still stings.
On the Thursday evening - as I left The Interrogation underwhelmed - a report from my favourite Polish-British couple arrived:
After one last look at my week-before-payday finances, I bought myself a ticket for the Sunday matinee.
Walking into Queen Elizabeth Hall, I was confronted with a familiar yet alien scene. The beautiful leather seats of the hall faced the stage as normal, but on the stage was a large cube and some uncomfortable-looking seating to either side and behind. We were instructed that we could sit anywhere and could move around wherever and whenever we liked outside the cube. We were also told we could take photos and video throughout except during scenes of nudity - a Chekhov’s gun of an audience briefing.
As the play/performance/dance unfolded, the actors were largely inside the cube with their actions filmed, incredibly cinematically, and projected onto all sides of the cube with subtitles. Through the sides of the cube you could catch glimpses of the actors as they roamed about, and more adventurous audience members did their own roaming and peered right into the cube to see the action for themselves.
At times that felt quite voyeuristic and a bit grubby, but perhaps that was the point.
The performance lasted almost three hours, and the only intervals were three 3-minute pauses during which music - reminiscent of the rave scenes from the ill-advised Matrix sequels - blasted out at volumes that vibrated every surface. In these short windows props and sets were tinkered with, the cast threw their bodies around, and I moved to a different side of the cube.
The Employees is not quite a play, not quite a film, not quite a movement piece. It is all three tangled together and presented without explanation. The result was a hallucinatory experience. The plot involved humans and synthetic humans discovering “objects” somewhere out in space, but the actual machinations were completely obscure to me.
As events slowly unravelled within the cube I didn’t know what was happening, but the experience as a whole pulled my emotions along with the performers. I would have preferred to have seen more of the show first-hand and not had to rely on watching the screens, especially when the physical screens were directly blocking my view.
As the show ended I was confused and tired. Walking out onto the Southbank - I really did feel like I had landed back on earth from an alien place. Did I understand it? Not in the slightest. Am I glad I went? Absolutely. This is a flawed theatrical gem.
Seat: Stalls and On-stage, Various - £47
I sampled all four sides of the cube, and the seating ranged from plush leather to uncushioned wood with no back support. I enjoyed the variety of viewing angles but was glad to end the show in a real seat with the subtitles at eye level. Three hours of neck craning and poor posture were felt the next morning.
Show: ★★★☆☆ to ★★★★★
Seat: ★★☆☆☆ to ★★★★★
Kyoto - @sohoplace
Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson - Authors
Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin - Directors
2 hours 35 minutes
After all that excitement, Kyoto might come across as mundane in comparison, but I’d rather you saw this show as a safe bet when compared to The Employees’ wild gamble. I saw this last summer on Shakespeare’s home turf in Stratford-upon-Avon, but it can now be seen in the least overpriced theatre in the West End.
Kyoto is mostly not set in Kyoto but instead follows a series of UN conferences as - over many, many years - the nations of the world try to agree on if/how they should address climate change. The action culminates in the Kyoto conference of 1997, and a frenetic last-minute set of negotiations that led to an international treaty that we get to see be pulled apart in real time out here in the real world.
This might sound like a dry topic, but the pace and personality with which the show propels the audience through events makes for an engaging, entertaining, and educational (I know!) few hours. The personality in question is Stephen Kunken (who has also played slimy men in Billions and The Handmaid’s Tale) who confidently addresses the audience and guides us through events from the point of view of an oil lobbyist. Having the bad guy tell the story both stops the show being too preachy, and neatly messes with your perceptions.
Giving the show a confident front man who knows no fourth wall and has no scruples takes the edge off what could be quite a dry evening. He lets us in on the behind-the-scenes meddling that allows treaties to be written and shows why they are so underwritten, non-committal, and ultimately ineffective. The minutiae of each word in a sentence is picked over until the resulting agreement is meaningless.
Kyoto successfully gives you your medicine in the form of steady doses of facts and information, but the confidence and swagger of its delivery means you always have enough sugar in the mix to avoid feeling preached to or patronised.
I would definitely recommend Kyoto, just be prepared for a sense of dread to come over you as you head home and the medicine finally kicks in.
Seat: N/A
I can’t comment on the specifics of the staging for Kyoto as I saw it in an entirely different theatre. That said, there are no bad seats in @sohoplace. The cheapest seat you can buy will be in the second balcony for £25. Sitting here will put you above and behind the screen in the photo above, but you’ll still see all the humans. (And no promises, but every time I buy the cheapest seat here, I have been upgraded.)
Alternatively for £80 you can pay to sit at the central conference table alongside the actors. One for the audience members with main character energy.
Show: ★★★★☆
Seat: ★★★★★
‘as I left the show I was confused and tired’… 🫶