Project Arts Centre

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Random Scream’s Investment at the Project Arts Centre is a bold, multi layered piece. The actors jolt between settings, characters and contexts: the effect is provocative, original, and sometimes a little overwhelming.

The play opens onto an empty stage, save for a table, chair, laptop and projector. It soon becomes apparent that the majority of the play will be staged as a business presentation. The piece begins with a lecture on the fragile nature of chance, opportunity and risk. Each adult audience member had been handed a National Lottery ticket on their way into the theatre. The first of many characters emerges in the first scene – a smooth talking yuppie who dares the audience to imagine what it would be like to win the lottery.  Random Scream’s philosophy of socially engaged theatre is apparent from the earliest scene. Each actor – all with the smooth talk of a salesman and the aura of integrity of a volunteer – begins by introducing three honorable charities, Stop Hunger Now, the RSCPA, and the International Tree Foundation, each of which an audience member could donate to in the unlikely event that they win the lottery.

Moving onward, the piece shifts in tone and pace, turning to contemporary dance. This brief interlude is followed quickly by a discussion between the characters about how they plan to stage a play set in 1945, investigating a composer’s involvement with the Third Reich. Such a play immediately follows, and within it, questions about the personal culpability of the individual within the face of a totalitarian regime, and the degree to which art can redeem horror emerge. The action then revisits the original conceit, and the smooth salesman returns, encouraging the audience to invest in arms companies. One company which can bypass those tiring EU trade laws forbidding the sale of arms to corrupt regimes is recommended. We are told that due to recent political developments across the world, sales for non lethal weapons for use on civilians are expected to soar. One gun, the size of a pistol with the capability of an assault rifle is growing in popularity – wars are now fought in urban environments. The piece moves swiftly towards what the individual could buy for 100,000 euro. Do you want two breast augmentation surgeries? Would you prefer thirty four kilos of marijuana? Or even three months of high quality rehab? All this could be yours, the actors advertise. The undercurrent of cynicism laced with dark humour is obvious.

The piece is brave, direct and though provoking. However, as it grapples with several extremely complex themes in a very short space of time, the result is occasional sensory and intellectual overload for the audience.