Review: The Empathy Experiment (Rose Condo, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 10th July 2019
Studio, King’s Arms, Salford

As you’ve probably twigged from my recent series of blog posts, the 2019 Greater Manchester Fringe runs throughout July. I’m reviewing a selection of shows from this year’s festival programme for this blog and for North Manchester FM, and the next show on my list is The Empathy Experiment in the Studio at the King’s Arms in Salford on Wednesday 10th July. You can hear the radio version of this review on Saturday’s Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the blog version…

The Empathy Experiment is a one-woman show written and directed by Rose Condo (with dramaturgy by Dominic Berry) about our relationship with our smartphones and mobile devices. Told through poetry and spoken word performance, The Empathy Experiment is constructed around a simple conceit: Condo has decided to give up using her smartphone for a full 24 hours in order to see if this increases her empathy levels. Now, in the final hour of the experiment, she is ready to share her findings with the audience.

The show is presented as a sort-of lecture, signalled by Condo donning a white lab coat and using title cards to announce the stages of her investigation. I say ‘sort-of lecture’, though, as the style and tone of presentation are somewhat at odds with the ‘science part’ of the content. While Condo provides some research to back up her assertions about empathy and compassion – quoting from both studies and more populist books – there is an intimacy and urgency to Condo’s delivery that makes the show feel more like a conversation with, rather than an address to, the audience.

The show combines some – surely widely relatable! – poetry about everyday smartphone addiction, including an absorbing and descriptive piece about accidentally falling into a scrolling binge late at night, with chatty musings on the nature of empathy and the way we relate to other people. Both the poetry and the running monologue are eloquent, lightly comedic and engaging throughout, though there is a bit of bite to some of the commentary on the declining quality of human interaction. Nevertheless, there is no direct target to Condo’s light-touch ire. Instead, she creates a sense of complicity through the relatability of her words: we all do this, so we’re all to blame.

The Empathy Experiment works on two levels. On the one hand, the audience are presented with some thought-provoking facts and studies about the ostensible decline in empathy, and the connection this may have to smartphone use, and with responses to an anonymous survey Condo conducted beforehand. Some of this is not really surprising, but it serves the purpose of encouraging reflection and reassessment of certain aspects of the modern world that we have come (in a few short years) to take for granted. (And a poetic piece about Facebook really underlines the speed at which these changes have occurred.) It’s the sort of factual presentation that doesn’t so much teach you something new, but rather reminds you of something you’d forgotten you already knew – like, for instance, the fact that very few people primarily use their smartphone as a phone.

However, on the other hand – and more powerfully – the show works to create an actual empathetic response from its audience through its delivery style. I found that, although I was thinking a lot while watching The Empathy Experiment, I was feeling something too.

Condo states up-front that she is a ‘friendly’ person (noting that this is because she’s Canadian), and ‘friendliness’ is a vibe that undoubtedly permeates The Empathy Experiment. In the small space of the King’s Arms Studio, the audience feels very close to Condo – and to one another. She is seated on the stage area when the audience arrives, apparently patiently waiting for them and preparing herself for the performance. When the show proper begins, she makes expert use of silence and stillness at key moments, and frequently makes direct and smiling eye contact with audience members. This style creates a warmth and familiarity that encourages a strong feeling of connection between performer and audience.

Part way through the show, Condo brings someone onto the stage with (though this isn’t really an audience participation show) for a mini-experiment based on the metaphor of ‘walking in someone else’s shoes’. Slowing the pace right down, this exchange has an incredible softness and gentleness to it, which I found really rather moving.

I don’t know if it was the research on empathy that Condo presented, or the effect of the show’s style and delivery, or just a heightening of innate compassionate responses, but I did feel a strong emotional response to some parts of the show. In particular, there’s a point towards the end when Condo reveals the outcome of her experiment, but also a realization about some of its implications, and I genuinely – just for a minute – felt the pain she was describing.

Of course, the fact that I had this feeling is all credit to the careful and deliberate pacing of the show’s script, as well as Condo’s sensitive and expressive performance. The Empathy Experiment is a very well-crafted show, and it’s really quite clever in the way it elicits an emotional response from its audience.

Overall, The Empathy Experiment is a charming, thought-provoking and clever production, which draws on Condo’s skills as a poet and spoken word performer to create a very enjoyable hour of entertainment. I will admit, I did turn my phone back on when the show finished, but I’ll also admit it was nice to briefly be without it.

The Empathy Experiment had a short (and sold out) run at the Greater Manchester Fringe, but it will be on at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. If you get chance to check out the show in Edinburgh, it’s a definite recommendation from me.

The Empathy Experiment was on at The King’s Arms on the 10th and 11th July, as part of the Greater Manchester Fringe, and it will be performed in August at The Banshee Labyrinth, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Thespis Theatre, GM Fringe)

Wednesday 10th July 2019
Whitefield Garrick Theatre

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. I’m reviewing a selection of shows staged throughout the month for this blog and for North Manchester FM. The next production I saw this month was Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Thespis Theatre, which was on at the Whitefield Garrick on the 10th and 11th July (I was at one of the performances on Wednesday 10th July). You can hear my radio review of the show on Saturday’s edition of Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the blog version…

I was interested in this production for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is one of two shows I’m planning to see this year that’s in a language other than English. Thespis are an Israeli theatre group, and their production of Shakespeare’s Sonnets is (mostly) in Hebrew, with English subtitles. While this year’s Fringe programme offers many great opportunities to see local talent, I’m excited to also have the opportunity to see emerging companies from further afield.

The second reason I was intrigued by this show is that I’d never been to the Whitefield Garrick before. Situated very close to Whitefield tram stop, this small theatre is home to the Whitefield Garrick Society, which grew out of wartime Home Guard performances. The building is a former machine shop – and it’s a really great little theatre space.

But back to Shakespeare’s Sonnets… the real reason this production interested me is that it weaves together and mixes up the words of Shakespeare’s famous poetry sequence to create a theatrical and narrative experience. If you are familiar with the sonnets, you will know that there is some (admittedly debated) sense of a narrative thread – even some sense of character, at times – to them, but I was fascinated to find out how Thespis would draw this out on stage.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intense, almost hypnotic, production, which uses expressionistic performance and stylistic design to focus on the themes of erotic love, vanity, jealousy, cruelty and sadness that permeate Shakespeare’s sequence. Directed by Meir Ben Simon and performed by Yoav Amir, Reut Berda-Levy, Odelya Dadoun, Debbie Levin and Gal Shamai, the production almost works as a series of vignettes, highlighting and dramatizing particular emotional threads, rather than as a linear story.

The show opens with a painter at his easel. The four other performers move onto a raised area at the back of the stage and watch him. At first, it feels as though they are watching with admiration, but it soon becomes clear that they are vying for his attention, like a troupe of somewhat competitive muses. Mirrors and paintbrushes abound, with the artist both drawing and being drawn by his muses.

The approach taken to the text of Shakespeare’s poetry is to fragment, repeat, distort and mix lines from different sonnets. Although the screens show lines from the English text, and signal the sonnet number from which they are taken, even non-Hebrew speakers in the audience quickly realize that these are not verbatim subtitles of the words being spoken on stage. Individual lines and words are repeated, or echoed by another character, and lines from multiple poems are brought together.

The overall effect of this is an emphasis on the musicality of the sonnets, which – when combined with the stylistic physical and aesthetic design – transcends the actual language being spoken (much in the same way as in an opera). This transcendence comes to the fore later in the production, when the first line of Sonnet 40 is repeated and echoed by the performers in a series of other languages (I think I caught French, German, Italian and Spanish).

Thespis have constructed their ‘narrative’ of the sonnets through a series of vignettes. For those familiar with Shakespeare’s poems and the standard interpretations of them, it is no surprise to see the ‘Fair Youth’ and the ‘Dark Lady’ appearing on stage, or to see them engage in a near-vicious tug-of-war over the artist. However, what’s more interesting are the interactions between these two characters, and the way they respond to one another in often unexpected ways. The actors adopt personas, rather than characters, and these adapt and alter as the performance progresses, following threads suggested by Shakespeare’s poetry.

I say the performance ‘progresses’, but this would suggest a more concrete linearity than is found in the production. While certain relationships appear to grow and fade on stage, this is not a strict narrative progression, nor does it follow a particular sequencing of Shakespeare’s poems. In places, Shakespeare’s Sonnets uses its source material as a jumping-off point for a more virtuoso enactment, with the poems being suggestive, rather than prescriptive.

I’d like to give praise, too, to Rona Mishol’s costume design, which lends a sriking visual style to the production. Each performer wears a simple white outfit, overlaid with jagged embroidery that suggests a broken mirror – a nice touch. However, costuming and design (including the sound design and music by Nadav Vikinski) really comes into its own when one of the female performers makes the (perhaps anticipated but certainly arresting) transformation into the Dark Lady. As a set-piece, this transformation is beautifully worked and was one of the highlights of the show for me.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intense and rather serious piece of theatre that offers an expressionistic and thematic interpretation of a poetic sequence. Nevertheless, Thespis aren’t averse to a bit of crowd-pleasing! The performance of Sonnet 18 – undoubtedly the best-known of the sonnets – is a proper show-stopper, and it made me smile to see that – even in a complex and fragmentary meditation on leitmotifs and musicality – ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ still gets to headline!

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is an intelligent and stylish staging of the Bard’s poetry sequence. For non-Hebrew speakers, it is an opportunity to lose yourself in the music of the poetry and the performance. If you get chance at another venue (in Israel or beyond!), I recommend you check out Thespis Theatre’s production.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets was on at the Whitefield Garrick on 10th and 11th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.

Review: People are Happy on Trains (war/war/war Theatre, GM Fringe)

Sunday 7th July 2019
Twenty Twenty Two, Manchester

This year’s Greater Manchester Fringe runs from 1st-31st July. I’m continuing my little journey through the festival programme, and the next show I saw was People are Happy on Trains by Galway-based war/war/war Theatre, which is on at Twenty Twenty Two, Dale Street, Manchester.

I saw People are Happy on Trains on Sunday 7th July, and it was the second play I saw that day. The first was All Things Considered’s Wake Up, Maggie! (which I talked about in my previous review), and I must say that the two shows made for quite a double bill. The contrast between the two was really quite striking!

Written by Anna Doyle and directed by Aoife Delany Reade, People are Happy on Trains is a one-act play exploring the complex emotional journey that profound grief can take. This metaphorical journey is staged as an actual journey – the train trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh – which is presented in real-time. It is staged on a very simple set: three sets of chairs with a central aisle conjure up a train carriage, and the rest is left to our imagination (led by the actors’ performances, of course). Although – as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews – I don’t like to know too much in advance about the plays I go to see at the festival, I did have a bit of background info on this one, as I interviewed Doyle about the production for my Hannah’s Bookshelf Greater Manchester Fringe Special at the end of June.

Emily White plays the central character, who is named in the credits simply as ‘girl’ (no character names are used in the actual performance). As we learn early on, this girl is travelling to Edinburgh to collect the personal effects of a loved one who has died. As she enters the carriage and takes her place towards the front of the stage area, she seems entirely alone. But it’s not long before others quietly move in behind her.

Credited only as the seat number they occupy on stage, Ellen McBride, Hanahazukashi Mai and Una Valaine play 59, 57 and 54 respectively. Following the girl into the carriage and taking their seats, it’s quickly apparent that these women are not simply fellow passengers travelling to Edinburgh.

People are Happy on Trains is an expressionistic piece that explores grief. The girl has lost her brother – her best friend – and the experience of this is described in fragmentary monologues from White, who exudes a control and earnestness deliberately at odds with the pain of the story she is telling. This control is juxtaposed with the freer expression of McBride, Mai and Valaine’s performances – these are even more fragmentary, but hint at the bewildering array of emotions that collide and conflict following a bereavement.

One of the striking things about People are Happy on Trains is the way the piece powerfully juxtaposes style and content. The performances and dialogue are stylized, expressionistic and mannered, and yet the story told is painful and raw – even brutal, in places. Despite the constrained stylistics, there is an undeniable universality to the narrative. Similarly, while the fragmented monologues describe a very specific relationship and backstory, the show constantly feels as though it is describing something more generalized and communal.

Strange as it may seem to say about a play that deals with the pain and confusion of grief, I found the performances in People are Happy on Trains almost pleasantly hypnotic. There’s a balletic style to some of the group pieces – an analogy drawn with a piano recital, which begins with Valaine and Doyle’s poetic writing, moves between the actors with a neatly choreographed grace. And I also enjoyed the way the sounds and movement of the train journey are signalled by the actors to punctuate the piece.

These elements – and the lyrical narration of Doyle’s script – lend the play a sort of dreamlike quality. Again, this makes for an interesting juxtaposition, as the girl’s story seems to touch on something very human and real, and yet the style of the production encourages the audience to see it is as unreal – even hallucinatory, at times. This contradiction is thought-provoking, but also relatable. Grief is contradictory, and the feeling of being both real and unreal at the same time is something many people will be able to identify with.

This is undoubtedly an ensemble piece, which relies on a certain chemistry between McBride, Valaine and Mai, as well as a brittleness in their interactions with White. It’s hard to single out one actor in a piece of this nature, but I will say that I found myself particularly drawn to McBride’s performance as the woman in Seat 59. Bristling with barely-concealed anger from the moment she arrives on stage, McBride delivers some of the harsher lines of the play, revealing the darker and more brutal emotions that underlie the grieving process. Her compelling and commanding performance ensures that this is a bit of a sucker-punch, but it is contextualized by the more wistful, nostalgic and reassuring performances of Valaine and Mai.

Overall People are Happy on Trains is both heartfelt and controlled – a serious meditation on the experience of grief. It makes intelligent and confident use of stylistic constraints to deliver a clever piece of contemporary theatre. I look forward to seeing more from war/war/war Theatre in the future.

As a short addition, I would like to mention how much I liked the venue chosen to stage this production. I’d not been to Twenty Twenty Two before, and I wasn’t sure how well a basement ping pong bar on Dale Street (with an entrance in a loading bay on Little Lever Street) would work as a performance space, but I really liked the vibe! The minimalist style and décor of Twenty Twenty Two really suited People are Happy on Trains, and there was a great atmosphere in the bar itself.

People are Happy on Trains is on at Twenty Twenty Two on Dale Street from 7th-10th July, as part of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe. To see the full programme for this year’s Fringe, visit the festival website.