PUSH UP Royal Court to 2 March.
London
PUSH UP
by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by Maja Zade
Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs To 2 March 2002
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS 020 7565 5000/020 7565 5100
Review Timothy Ramsden 13 February
Sleek and chic: sex and ambition in corporate management.So, things are no different in Germany, where Schimmelpfennig's plays are well-known (ATC will be touring another in Britain later this spring). All over corporate Europe office politics probably differ little. What brings the issues into sharp focus is the play's form. It's stunningly clever or a cop-out on dramatic development according to your view. But however you take it, there's no denying the immaculate performances or the scrupulous control in Ramin Gray's bleakly impressive production.
Mostly, the action – which is pushing the term – consists of cross-desk duologues, with characters swivelling to face the audience for monologues of power-play and paranoia. There's young Sabine provoking unwarranted jealousy in the older Angelika over relationships with the company boss, there's the office affair gone sour between Robert and Patrizia, which transfers to their fight over a marketing campaign.
Then there's the Delhi assignment, over which Frank and Hans compete. It's here the point's most clearly made that one lust-and-ambition driven high-flyer's pretty much like another. Whether between women, men or woman and man, all human values are empty forms beside career progression. Frank, a fifty-plus net-porn addict putting on weight, and Hans, in his sixties and taking flesh off again, could easily be the same person at different stages of company life.
Designer Rodney Grant provides a confining grey box set, the sole difference between offices being a re-arrangement of the desk and chairs on the titanic 16th floor. And underpinning this is the only real relationship, between the husband and wife security guards who frame the action. Not that they're immune. Company life keeps them apart - we see them, separately, changing into company uniform - and it's clear from their comments on the company's ad. campaign that the corporate tentacles stretch into their private lives as consumers.
Occasionally figures are glimpsed behind the huge window; silent figures alien to a hermetic life which conditions people as much as the air they breathe. I wouldn't relish seeing this play in a merely competent production, but at this high level of presentation it strikes hard as a chillingly modern piece.
Heinrich: Peter Sproule
Angelika: Sian Thomas
Sabine: Lucy Whybrow
Robert: David Tennant
Patrizia: Jaqueline Defferary
Hans: Robin Soans:
Frank: Nigel Lindsay
Maria: Flaminia Cinque
Director: Ramin Gray
Designer/Lighting: Rodney Grant
Sound: Ian Dickinson
2002-02-17 13:40:45