Short post about a dreadful play
15/03/2011
Quango 193 will definitely be a strong contender for the worst play of 2011. I know that already. I'm not going to devote too much time to writing about it because I've already wasted 90 minutes of my life watching it.
It's a site specific production in an office block in Victoria about a quango facing the chop. Topical, I thought; nice idea performing in an actual office, I thought.
What you got was a terrible script lacking in any depth or character development that was so over-acted a precocious ten-year old would have been more subtle.
Rather than analysing the human side to public sector cuts and the nuances of office dynamics they just killed each other. OK so we've all wanted to strangle a colleague with the phone cord at some point in our working life but really, how predictable. Mind you, if they hadn't turned on each other I would have had a go myself just to get it over with.
And just to add to the misery of watching, the director seems to have fallen into the Winterlong trap and decided that as much unnecessary mess of the performance space should be made as possible. Actors taking bites of sandwiches and then spitting it out at other actors is rarely in context or maybe they were just as irritated with each other as I was with the play.
All a bit of a shame really. Avoid like the plague. I give it one star and that's only because there was a good idea buried somewhere.