The second of three one act plays all performed by the same cast and directed by the same person, Sticks And Stones, was performed this evening for the first time in England, having previously only been performed at this year's Edinburgh Festival.
Vinay Patel's satirical and clever look at our PC (political correctness) world is a fun play with a serious message, and directed by Stef O'Driscoll it takes on a highly stylised and computer-ish life of its own.
We are in the corporate world, and one of the team, wanting and waiting for promotion gives a seminar, an important seminar which she believes she has nailed. However, during this she made a joke and used a word in that joke which - according to our ever-changing ideas of what words are O to say and which aren't - was absolutely offensive and as a consequence was disciplined and she finds herself on an ever descending spiral desperately trying to both get her life back and understand why that word ( we never find out which word) was so problematic.
It's a very wry look at how our internet-obsessed world, and our desperate need to be totally fully-inclusive and non-offensive to anyone, at any time, ever, that as the phrase goes, it is PC gone mad!
The direction was a little odd, as indeed O'Driscoll's style of directing was rather odd and obfuscating in all three plays. I understood, I think, what she was trying to achieve by the stilted choreography for every 'word' that needed highlighting, but it did get wearisome and predictable after a while and slowed down the narrative.
Katherine Pearce once again took the lead in this play both by being the strongest character and by being the protagonist, and all other roles were once again shared out between Charlotte O'Leary and Jack Wilkinson.
The play itself as enjoyable but found the style of performance didn't really cohere with the message of the play as well as perhaps it ought to have done. It became an exercise in stilted and choreographed movement rather than a relatable piece of theatre.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 7/9/18
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