A team of ‘man­age­ment con­sult­ants’ are recalled from their pro­ject over­seas in order to work on an urgent pro­pos­al. The ques­tion in front of them – if there was a deadly vir­us that killed the car­ri­er and eas­ily infec­ted oth­ers, how would you con­tain it without alarm­ing the com­munity? As they start to work through their ideas they begin to won­der – is this only a pre­cau­tion­ary exer­cise or are they design­ing a gen­o­cide machine?  

The set (designed by Jen­nifer O’Sullivan) is a cheer­ful Ins­tagram-worthy office with ubi­quit­ous grey striped car­pet tiles, col­our­ful fid­get toys, a bright red bean­bag, office plants, rain­bow anim­al prints, a white­board, a bar height table sur­roun­ded by tall chairs, some board games on shelves, and a water cool­er. Intern Scoot­er (Slaine McK­en­zie) wanders into the office as the audi­ences files into the theatre. He doesn’t do much – takes some selfies, moves some things around. His man­ager Han­nah (Lis­ette Pren­de) fol­lows him in and imme­di­ately tells him off for not organ­ising the meet­ing space prop­erly. Her oth­er three team mem­bers burst into the office chat­ting about their flight. Brock (James Bayliss) takes an imme­di­ate dis­like to Scoot­er, there’s a play for dominance…bye bye Scoots. Ted (Paul Kay) wants to get on with the pro­ject so he can get to his daughter’s soc­cer game. Sandeep (Jett Ranch­hod) has some reser­va­tions but as a team play­er he’s will­ing to go along with the dis­cus­sion – until he’s not. Dir­ect­or Devon Nuku makes good use of the stage mov­ing his act­ors in bal­ance. I enjoyed their quick fire line deliv­ery and what looks like genu­ine team spir­it. Nuku describes them as “build­ing a world that is hor­ri­fy­ing in its banal nor­mal­ity”. The res­ult is a very funny black com­edy ably acted by a strong ensemble cast which should prompt us to look at our own eth­ics in the work­place. 

Con­tent note: con­tains dis­cus­sion of gen­o­cide

  • Ideation on at BATS Theatre to 6 July 2019