After a violent incident in the factory in which he has worked for most his life, Orlando is sent to the company's psychologist for evaluation. It is in the hands of the psychologist his responsibility to his fellow workers is questioned, his loyalty to the Company reinvigorated and his fate sealed. Read more …
Born in a working class area of Caracas,Venezuelan playwright Rodolfo Santana scored his first major success with his play The Company will Allow One Moment of Madness’. Since then he has been prolific, producing over fifty plays including the equally successful The Ladies Room. “I try to write for workers, students and those women struggling to survive the rising cost of living. And these are the people I want to bring to the stage”, he says.
Featuring Jo Freer and Lewis Howden.
Pearson’s script and Tessa Walker’s production achieve just the right balance of light and shade. Credit goes to Howden and an animatedly comic Freer, who both turn in excellent performances.
The play's point is that modern capitalism works hard at suppressing, pathologising and buying off the rage it causes; and that violence and injustice are inextricably linked. And if Santana's demonstration of those truths sometimes seems a shade obvious and mechanical, it has an undeniable dramatic power, comic, tragic and explosive.
Freer and Howden excel as the maligned worker and calculating psychologist, but it’s Pearson’s words, and Santana’s premise of the plight of the modern day worker that makes The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness such a promising start to the NTS' Reveal season.
The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness
Oran Mor/NTS's The Company Will Overlook a Moment of Madness
A Play, a Pie and a Pint, Glasgow from Monday February 7, 2011, until Saturday February 12, 2011. 1.00pm. More info: http://playpiepint.com
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday February 15, 2011, until Saturday February 19, 2011. More info: www.traverse.co.uk