Review: DISRUPTION, Park Theatre

“Everyone was obsessed with the idea of disruption,” says Andrew Stein in the program notes as he describes the genesis of his play. A decade ago, founders of small tech companies were the new rockstars, he explains. They all wanted to shake things up. Slowly, their projects grew and infiltrated our lives in the most subtle of ways.

Alexa, Siri, and Google are steady presences in our daily tasks. We willingly give up details about our habits, likes, and dislikes regularly in order to read, watch, and learn. Disruption comes from a place of curiosity. It’s an intellectually provocative story, expertly woven into an absorbing piece of choral theatre.

It follows three couples as they grapple with their old friend Nick’s groundbreaking algorithm. His invention would interlace people’s lifestyles to create “curated coincidences” and make their choices easier and more reasoned. He’s looking for funding, they’re reluctant to invest. What they don’t see is that Nick and his business partner Raven have already set the code up. They unwittingly become their control group. Nick masterminds his way into their pockets, altering their fate and welcoming them among the super-rich. 

It borders a dystopia that’s just round the corner from where we stand right now. Andrew Stein introduces über-witty characters with quick one-liners, but imbues the text with that typically American underlying humour that nears tediousness. He has the tendency to restrict the roles he's written into formulas with an aura that references modern mortal sins. Nick is a Mephistophelian presence whose manipulation tactics are streamlined by technology. He meets them at a crossroad in their lives, promising money, knowledge, happiness.

Jill and Paul’s marriage is on the rocks. She is a tired mother who’s supporting the whole family while his journalistic career falters, they know how to hurt each other and aren’t afraid to cross the line. Barry and Mia, a doctor and a photographer, lust after a bigger, better house in Brooklyn but can’t quite afford it, even with his hot-shot surgeon salary. Suzie and Ben struggle with the decision of having a baby. Nick swoops in and offers them a way out.

Realism gives way to minimalistic expressionism under Hersch Ellis’s direction. With Robbie Butler’s stark lights, his precise visual arrangements are futuristic tableaux that move the plot indefatigably. Disruption urges us to explore the questions that surround the willing forfeit of agency in order to gain efficiency. The algorithm turns into somewhat of a god, displacing predestination into the results of a chain of code trained to study patterns and desires. Death becomes the only immutably unpredictable variable.

The cast are directed with a precision that sometimes comes off as artifice. It’s unfortunate that the writing at times falls into negligible clichés and prosaic turns of phrase, delivering the theories that support the story well, but failing to make their characters truly interesting. Nathaniel Curtis and Debbie Korley are the overly analytical and slightly pretentious couple who discuss extravagant holiday destinations but can’t agree on starting a family.

Mika Simmons and Nick Read argue about everything while she worries about potential affairs and he’s bored out of his mind. Kevin Shen and Rosanna Hyland fret about money and optics eyeing a multi-million brownstone from their ivory tower. Oliver Alvin-Wilson and Sasha Desouza-Willock become the puppeteers, locking them inside their little miseries, instilling doubt and stoking the fires of competition, pushing their ambition. The pair are the cyber villains, the couples their needy civilians.

The piece is a brilliant conversation on the ethics and inexorable weaponisation of data usage as well as an eye-opener on the sly daily interferences of tech giants. You’ll think of this play every time you talk about buying a new toaster and suddenly every ad you see is endorsing a different brand.

Disruption runs at the Park Theatre until 5 August.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

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