Someone Else – The Draft – Review
by Frank L

Someone Else – Written by David McGovern
Venue: The Bank at the Digital Hub, 85 James Street, The Digital Hub, Dublin 8, D08 C2PR
Dates:  Thu 28th – Sun 31st May

The publicity for the play claims that it “challenges the unfettered drive towards progress and the erosion of human value by asking what’s lost and what cannot be replaced.” The four characters are nameless, but each carries out an activity – the first to appear is Lise-Ann McLaughlin, who is the manager and a master of ceremonies for the show, talking directly to the audience. There is Venus Patel, who reveals a little about her everyday routine.

We see the three junior office staff carry out actions in a production line. There is Liam Bixby, a delivery boy who carries innumerable cardboard boxes, each containing an item of clothing. Lorcan Strain processes the receipt of each cardboard box and places the item on a scanner. When each box is opened, he removes from it a piece of paper and places it carefully in a small metal tray. Patel takes the plastic bag and carefully folds it. The actual items of clothing serve no apparent purpose. There is, in addition, at the direction of Lise-Ann McLaughlin, a tiny element of audience participation involving three members of the audience.

The Bank at The Digital Hub is a large cuboid space with an extremely high ceiling, and its walls are entirely white. Its “whiteness” was intensified by a bright lighting system. The seats, approximately 30, for the audience are arranged in an arc in two rows with a central walkway. The props consist of various items of technological equipment, the most prominent of which is a series of screens on which various images appear.

And so the cardboard boxes are delivered by the delivery boy until he becomes superfluous, then Strain the processor becomes superfluous and then Patel. But they do not entirely disappear; they have on stage an alter ego. Eventually, too, the master of ceremonies metamorphoses into an alter ego but retains a skill the other three lack.

The delivery, processing and opening of the boxes have, like a mantra, a repetitive calming fascination with the interventions of Lise-Ann McLaughlin bringing a levity to the proceedings. However, while its performance keeps your attention, its purpose is far from clear. It is difficult to discern how it asks “what’s lost and cannot be replaced”, which is what it claims it set out to do. What it does deliver is a whimsical view of office culture through a lens of experimental theatre.

Someone Else – Written and Directed by David McGovern
Cast: Venus Patel, Lórcan Strain, Liam Bixby and Lise-Ann McLaughlin.
Design team includes Paul Prior, Em Kelleher, Colin Doran and Anderson De Souza.