One of the best things about London theatre is that once in a while a show will give its understudies a chance to break out of the dressing room and soar on the stage. It's a chance to see talented performers at a discount price. What's not to like? Lucy Donnelly and Mark Sean-Byrne are both flawless. His slouched frustration plays against her manic dream pixie self-loathing. The stage is gorgeously laid out - allowing the performers to dance around each other.
The Mayor of London passed a law a few years ago which said that every theatre performance needs to incorporate a live video backdrop. That's the only explanation for that particular cliché's ubiquity. But here it actually makes sense! We see social-media star Katya going live to her legion of followers, and her face is blown up a million pixels wide, dominating the stage. At times, the waveforms of the characters' voices undulate along the back wall. It is hypnotic.
It's such a shame that the dialogue is so inept and the plot so ridiculous. The characters' emotions change because the plot needs them to - not because of anything that has actually happened. I get that the play is called "Interview", but that doesn't mean every line of dialogue needs to be a question, does it? Finally, there's no reason for any of the plot to happen.
At its core is a good question about the tension between new-media and old. Whether selling parasocial relationships is whoreish behaviour (and if that matters)? Are pale-stale-male journalists the enemy? Or does their tragic backstory absolve them of responsibility?
Unlike, say, Mamet's Oleanna there's no he-said/she-said. There isn't a lot of ambiguity about what is and isn't happening. The final "twist" is works well but, again, there's no reason for it to happen. The whole play lacks a sense of why.
The play is on until the 27th of September. The performances are stunning, the staging innovative, the sound design is excellent. It's just a pity the play itself is a bit underwhelming.
