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Theatre Absolute has never been a company to pull its punches, and its latest work Zero is no exception.
The hard hitting drama is set in a futuristic prison camp where inmates are brutally interrogated for information (similiarities with Guantanamo Bay are inevitable), and an unlikely alliance is formed between translator Alex (the excellent Stephen Hudson) and newly stationed squaddie Tom (played by a charismatic Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, "isn't it?").
The former has borne witness to the degrading torture of detainees - one scene literally turned the auditorium cold - and wants to speak out, but it's no easy task.
Nor is watching Chris O'Connell's compelling play, especially during the chaotic opening when all characters speak at once. But beyond the violence (none of which is explicit) and constant tension there is a real heart to this piece, most notably in the developing relationship between stiff-upper lipped Alex and working class lad Tom.
Each character is brilliantly fleshed out and performed to ensure you live through the nightmare with them.
**** Steve Adams
Coventry Times 9/10/08
09/10/08
Coventry playwright Chris O'Connell and his company Theatre Absolute built their reputation on raw, punchy dramas and their latest certainly continues that tradition.
But whereas pieces like the Car trilogy dealt with alienated youth in contemporary society, Zero takes a wider world-view and reflects on where the war on terror might have taken us 20 years into the future. The war is now being waged on behalf of something called the Global Economic Alliance against an enemy identified only as 'the others'. With terrorist attacks at epidemic levels, scruples about the use of torture have evidently been further relaxed.
Two naive recruits turn up at a Guantanamo Bay style facility called Camp Zero. Tom is a private who has signed up for adventure in the time honoured tradition, while Alex, an officer, is here to act as an interpreter between prisoners and their interrogators. Their story is told retrospectively after they have gone on the run, apparently carrying a book in which Alex has documented the abuses, including murder disguised as suicide, he has witnessed. Written in O'Connell's familiar stripped-down style, integrated with an edgy electronic score by Andy Garbi, it has a visceral power which is counterbalanced by the odd and sometimes comic relationship of Tom and Alex.
Though fellow fugitives, they are far from being on the same wavelength. While Alex has been shocked out of his shallow pragmatism, Tom's instincts are far more self-centred, more inclined to swing towards the course of action which at one particular moment seems likeliest to restore things to normality.
This relationship, which draws exceptional performances from Daniel Hoffmann-Gill and Stephen Hudson, gives foreground depth to what might otherwise seem an overly-schematic play. And it is perhaps interesting, given current news events, that O'Connell seems to root his bleak future in globalisation and the reaction to its effects, rather than religious or political ideologies.
*** Terry Grimley
Birmingham Post 2/10/08
09/10/08
Violent and dark, this play does not make for an easy night out, but it does make for a thought-provoking one.
Zero is a hard hitting, fast and furious production exploring the ethics of torture in a chaotic world.
Under the leadership of city writer Chris O’Connell and director Matt Aston, Coventry-based Theatre Absolute delivers an intense and uncompromising drama centred on doomed characters facing a battle with their conscience.
The play resisted the temptation to offer a biased account and left me feeling sympathy for both the wardens and prisoners in the camps who had committed atrocious crimes.
Set 20 years in the future, the play imagines a world where wealthy societies use torture camps to protect their interests – at any cost – from those who aim to blow it apart.
At this one particular camp – Zero – Alex, a lieutenant translator, decides he wants to let the world know “the story” about the camp’s gruesome activities but, by doing so, puts his own life in danger.
The play poses the idea that capitalism is slowly ripping the heart out of us, and reducing us to savages and I certainly walked away with a lot to think about.
A gripping piece of theatre. ****
Christina Savvas
Coventry Telegraph
Coventry Telegraph 2/10/08
09/10/08
Zero is a powerful drama that investigates the cycle of violence in which a state's actions to defeat terrorism are so oppressive that they inspire others to become terrorists. It is set in the near future where suicide bombings are epidemic and huge numbers of suspects are held in detention camps. Writer Chris O'Connell has made an interesting twist on the terrorism plot: in this future vision it is not Islamism that inspires the bombers, but poverty and the envy of wealth apparently resulting from globalisation.
The story follows two soldiers who arrive at Camp Zero. Alex, played by the excellent Stephen Hudson, is a level-headed, educated translator who is shocked at the torture inflicted on the prisoners and who begins to understand that this treatment is part of the cause of the violence. Tom, on the other hand, is a new recruit who has signed up for the adventure and who initially accepts the raison d'être of the camp unquestioningly. Alex decides that he must reveal the truth about the torture to the public by writing a book. His only ally is the unreliable Tom and with bombings occurring everywhere there is no guarantee that anyone will want to listen. As the government try to prevent the book leaving the camp, Alex and Tom are forced to run for their lives and a dramatic endgame ensues.
This play includes torture scenes that are shocking but true-to-life and not over-played, benefitting from the amazing directorial skills of the Lakeside's Matt Aston. Comic relief is provided by Tom's bumbling good humour and childish naivety. Tom is superbly played by Daniel Hoffman-Gill, who happens to be a former LeftLion contributor. Tom represents the ignorance and complacency of the public, providing a poignant contrast to Alex, who is shocked out of his military sense of detachment by the illogical brutality.
This is a compelling contribution to the debate on governments' reaction to terrorism. However, I feel there are a couple of weaknesses. Firstly, whilst the writer's position is clear, he has a duty to convey the alternate point of view. Although the camp's major does ask whether there are situations where torture is acceptable, this line is not explored. Secondly, the scene in which a detainee explains that it is economic inequality and envy that drove him to buy explosives rather than tools, is rather unconvincing. Failing to address these points means the play risks preaching only to the converted. However, it makes a powerful case why we should all pay attention to what is being done in our names.
Adrian Bhagat
LeftLion Magazine, Nottingham
14/10/08
Set in a dystopian near-future, Zero poses the problem of survival on a micro and macro scale. The Global Economic Alliance has created a society where its willing participants are rich and successful, but where the victims of its economic apartheid are driven to acts of terrorist violence to express their frustration and anger.
More than 500 camps exist to extract information from those disenfranchised by society – extraction by torture. Into one such camp come Tom (Daniel Hoffmann-Gill), a squaddie who signed up to get back at the ‘scum’ who’ve been responsible for the deaths of his friends, and Alex (Stephen Hudson), a translator (and lieutenant) who has drifted into the job. What they find frightens and appals them, driving them to act against the regime.
While Tom’s rebellion is born out of a lack of understanding, Alex takes a moral stance that puts him at serious odds with his immediate colleagues and superiors. The camp commander Major Chaudry (Abdel Akhtar) and the sinister, pregnant interrogator Helen (Kate Ambler) face Alex down with their own moral arguments for torture and protecting their way of life at any cost. Completing the characters is Demissie (Damian Lynch) – a prisoner being interrogated who has his own particular reasons for having acted against the system.
The parallels with current events at Guantanamo Bay and Orwell’s 1984 are clear throughout this splendidly realised play. Strong performances from all participants – particularly Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as the bemused / angry / homesick Tom, and Stephen Hudson as the impotent but outraged Alex – create believable characters driven by realistic motives. The major question of clashing moral standpoints is left unresolved as individuals attempt to fight a system that is convinced of its own correctness.
A stark set and invasive sound create and maintain an atmosphere of tension and oppression and Matt Aston is to be congratulated on his strong direction of this thought provoking play. Theatre Absolute continues to produce excellent work – much of it written by Chris O’Connell – well into their second decade. This production demonstrates that strong characterisation and energetic performance combine to present excellent, though-provoking theatre for their audiences.
Simon Berry, 17/10/08
Oxford Daily 16/10/08
17/10/08
Theatre Absolute & Warwick Arts Centre have come together to bring "Zero" by Chris O'Connell to the Citizens Circle Studio. Set in 2028 it takes place in Camp Zero - a detention centre for the interrogation of 'The Others' - perceived threats to the Global Economic Alliance. While the play does ask us to consider the ethical implications of torture, its real core is the impact that witnessing it has on camp translator Alex.
O'Connell's decision to move the setting on from the present day is a clever one. There is nothing here that could be called futuristic and the issues are very much of the present. But he enables us to jettison the baggage of our current conflicts and the simplicity of the fictional conflict provides little distraction.
As Alex, Stephen Hudson delivers a phenomenal performance as we see him deteriorate from someone very much in control to a man on the brink. Not an uncommon event in theatre, but what makes his performance so extraordinary is that O'Connell's script and Matt Aston's direction calls for scenes in different timeframes to be quickly intercut. Daniel Hoffman-Gill as army grunt Tom also handles the demands of the script well, although the character's journey is perhaps not so far as Alex's. It's largely the relationship between these two characters and the performances of the two actors that make the play work so well.
O'Connell's use of language is impressive including powerful moments when detainees are read their non-rights. There are also a number of effective set piece moments in here - particularly the DVD messages home and the impressively portrayed scenes where Demissie (Damian Lynch) is interrogated. But there are other aspects that didn't quite work for me such as the relationship between interrogator Helen and the commander (despite good performances from Kate Ambler & Adeel Akhtar).
As an 'issue' play it doesn't attempt to offer any answers, or even ask any new questions, but as a character study this is a forceful piece of theatre.
View From The Stalls 9/11/08
13/11/08
It's 20 years from now and the world is divided into the member states of the Global Economic Alliance and the dismissively termed Others. Such is the tension between these factions that hundreds of camps have been built for the internment of suspected terrorists, not only on the ground but also in aircraft, perpetually in flight, and in ships. It is to one such facility, Camp Zero, located in a desert, that Alex, a translator, and Tom, a naive army recruit, are dispatched. Alex is pragmatic, his intention simply to do his part in the unpleasant but necessary business of protecting the alliance; Tom, ten times bereaved by the terrorist attacks, is fuelled by boyish excitement and the promise of vengeance. Neither is prepared for the savagery that awaits.
Chris O’Connell’s new play, presented by his Theatre Absolute company, is noisy, chaotic and as subtle as a jackboot to the crotch. But it has urgency and intelligence, and Matt Aston’s sweaty, hard-edged production grips. In this dystopian near-future, the wellspring of hatred is the wealth gap. O’Connell avoids dwelling on the historical and religious causes of conflict, and so oversimplifies. Instead, he depicts a world polluted by brutality, its inhabitants dehumanised by rampant capitalism; and air, sea and land all contaminated by the camps that symbolise hatred and division.
He also raises the issue of censorship: horrified by the torture he not only witnesses but in which he is forced to participate, Alex plans to tell all in a book and, with Tom, flees the camp. But will anyone want to listen? The evocation of control by propaganda and fear is almost Orwellian.
An opposing view is offered by the ruthless realpolitik of the camp’s general and a pregnant female interrogator, whose willing espousal of techniques designed to terrify, agonise and humiliate is motivated by her determination to make the world safe for her unborn child, her natural maternal instinct corrupted by unnatural economic and political systems.
The argument is less rigorous than it could be, because those characters are underwritten – as is the suspect with whom Alex unsuccessfully attempts to make a connection. Still, Aston’s staging, with its oppressive sound and lighting and its stylised violence, delivers the play’s punch despite its dialectical drawbacks. There are strong performances from Stephen Hudson as Alex, driven from complacency to action and the edge of madness, and from Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as greenhorn Tom.
- Sam Marlowe
The Times 17/11/08
17/11/08
With a cast of only five, production company Theatre Absolute present their latest offering Zero at The Tristan Bates Theatre. Set twenty years from now in a world of terrorist anarchy, it follows the frustration, and futile efforts of Alex, a translator in Camp Zero as he tries to expose the inhumane torture regimes he is unwillingly a party to. Stephen Hudson puts in an energetic performance as the protagonist , whilst Daniel Hoffman Gill is equally impressive as Tom, his subordinate, and as it emerges only friend. Though initially Tom appears almost childlike in his naivety, his character surprises as he becomes increasingly insightful as the play progresses. Major Chaudry (Adeel Akhtar) and Syrah (Kate Ambler) represent the destructive force they’re up against, with Desimmie (Damien Lynch) the terrorist Alex fleetingly befriends.
Writer Chris O’Connell gives each character the opportunity to promote their cause leaving the audience empathising at points with all. There’s Alex, the intellect torn between his moral conscience and sense of duty, and with it, burdened by guilt. Is this the reason he wants to out the truth? A selfish need to redeem himself as Demissie is quick to suggest? Demissie, in a mitigating speech explains why he is imprisoned at Camp Zero; because he car bombed a businessman who had brought him custom. Why, asks Alex in sheer exasperation. He is one of the few to ask that question Demissie points out. Why? Because, like so many of his neighbours, so many in his social position, he was blinded by anger, bitterness and seething hatred towards the unattainably wealthy. Major Chaudry is simply brainwashed by his belief in the system whilst Syrah feels it’s the only alternative. There is no prevention, only cure.
The play reaches its climax when Alex tries to escape the camp armed only with a self penned book documenting his experience and the abuse of human rights behind the prison walls. He, and Tom who goes along for the ride, are desolate in the wilderness; exhausted, hungry and fighting for survival. Without giving it away the ending itself suggests their fate was inevitable. They’re indeed helpless and hapless in equal measure leaving the audience saddened for them and the situation as a whole, but at the same time, hardly surprised.
A minimal set piece, and simplistic lighting perhaps to consciously convey the austerity of the prison entrusts the play in an excellent script to carry the story forward. The subject matter though heavy is punctuated with moments of light comic relief making the running time of approximately one hour and forty minutes pass easily. Overall then Zero, with its small yet talented cast, and be it creative team, is a thoroughly engaging, excellent play that may strike an uneasy chord with some as they realise it prophesises a future not so far from the truth.
Cavelle Leigh
Totally Theatre 18/11/08
18/11/08
The latest piece from Theatre Absolute is an absolute mess, but it is a gripping mess powered by its own fury and sense of injustice. It may be unsubtle and incoherent, but if you are looking for political theatre, this is the real thing. There is nothing polite about it - it screeches and shouts.
Chris O'Connell's script is set 20 years hence in a dystopian world where the rich have formed a Global Economic Alliance that protects their interests and ensures the poor keep getting poorer. With nothing left to lose, the latter have taken to violence and, with a terrorist incident happening every two hours, the GEA has set up over 500 Guantánamo-style camps, some on airplanes that endlessly circle the world.
Arriving at Camp Zero, translator Alex and army private Tom find themselves in a nightmarish world of brutality, lies and censorship; when Alex decides the truth must be told, their lives are at risk. There is so much wrong with this play, but there is a great deal that's right, not least in the way it shows how we are prepared to curtail others' individual liberties to protect our own. The camp's chief interrogator is a chilling, pregnant psychologist who justifies her brutality because she is making the world a safer place for her unborn child.
OK, so Alex and Tom's naivety is hard to swallow, the relationship between Alex and the prisoner is sketchy, the structure confusing, the plotting stretches credulity, and Matt Aston's production doesn't know the meaning of the word quiet. But if this 90 minutes is indecently loud, that's because it points out that the real indecency is that, in standing quietly by and letting Guantánamo happen, we are potentially paving the way for a world of Camp Zeroes.
- Lyn Gardner
The Guardian 21/11/08
22/11/08
Raw. Intense. Loud. Dark. Powerful. Matt Aston directs a grisly production that forces the audience to bear witness not to the atrocities of war, but to the horrors we ourselves create.
Chris O’Connell’s nightmarish Zero is the new Theatre Absolute production currently on the last leg of its UK tour at the Tristan Bates Theatre. The play is set 20 years in the future in Camp Zero, one of hundreds of “interrogation” camps. O’Connell, however, has cleverly excluded any details that could actually date or place the events in his story which offers a timelessness. In 50 years from now it will still be seen as contemporary. The stellar cast portrays a nameless military regime dealing with an unnamed “other;” any theatergoer, regardless of nation or creed, will see their respective country portrayed onstage. The lack of definition in the story extends to the set itself, which uses stationary metal rods to create the suggestion of a prison camp and other settings; the minimalist decor melds with the stark nature of the show and allows the thematic message to shine without visual distractions. The writer demands the audience to face the fact there is no hero and no villain when it comes to one group fighting another because each justifies their own villainous actions against the other. Aston further emphasises the guilty nature, as well as increasing the overall anxiety in the room, by occasionally giving a nod to Edgar Allen Poe by filling the theatre with the hideous beating of a heart.
Zero does not progress in a straight linear structure, but jumps back and forth from the dramatic present to the tense events leading up to it. This form of storytelling allows the cast to show off their talent for transitioning from one mental state to another in a matter of seconds. Stephen Hudson [Alex] is exceptional in these emotional quick changes. He is the show’s protagonist, a translator with a conscience at Camp Zero, and the degree to which he commits to the extreme states required of him is unnerving. The audience is quite literally drawn toward his powerful performance. No less worthy of praise is Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as Tom — the naïve private who quickly learns that war is more than just about standing up to “dirty scum.” Zero raises questions about the bloodthirsty world we live in. O’Connell uses war to hone in on peoples’ actions of baseness, desperation, and self-righteousness as compelled by the delusion of right or wrong, good or evil. Import and export for Off Broadway.
- Roberto Hernandez
Blanche Marvin.com 22/11/08
22/11/08
Set in the near future when hundreds of camps exist in a black and white world of rich and poor, Alex (Stephen Hudson), an interpreter, finds himself stationed in camp Zero, where he forms an unlikely alliance with new recruit Tom (Daniel Hoffman-Gill). Tom's first job is to interpret for Syrah (Kate Ambler), a nasty interrogative psychologist, whom he witnesses using humiliating tactics. Soon he is in trouble with the Major (Adeel Akhtar) who lucidly lectures him on the reasoning behind their methods. Stephen becomes increasingly desperate before he and Tom attempt to break out and tell the world.
Writer Chris O'Connell has clearly done his research. He packs a lot of information in with sound arguments on both sides. His non-linear structure works up to a point, but perhaps loses its way a little towards the end when a combination of over acting and over the top theatrics muddles the narrative.
That said, the acting and theatrics are on the whole very good. The drab, stifling set design throughtfully conveys the environment of a perceptively alien place such as this. Akthar stands out as a steadfast, brass-necked army man who wholly believes in the logic conveyed by the purveyors of torture. Hudson puts incredible energy into his performance that is at times heart-wrenching, at others a little over-zealous; his desperation almost a metaphor for our collective helplessness against the upper echelons of power. Hoffman-Gill is also a powerhouse combination of seething aggression and simpleton-like ignorance.
With the choice to have a female interrogator the writer may be drawing parallels with the infamous Abu-Ghraib prison camp where a female soldier was tried for torture. But the choice is a risky one and here comes across as a little gimmicky. If the writer is trying to tell us that women are just as capable as men of committing cruelty to fellow humans then okay, but it isn't necessary. And can we believe, for instance, when she produces a used tampon as a method of humiliating a prisoner? Well, there may be evidence to back this up, yet even us pliable liberals may ask: Really??
Of course, as we will ask in politically charged theatre, what has it actually told us? Do we believe it possible? With something as enigmatic as secret camps to what extent does it affect our conscience? This is a fully loaded production and one that has a lot going for it. There are holes and ambiguities, yet there are more areas of strength, and this is a play that deserves large scale staging and the widest possible audience to help make more transparent the actions taken by governments when it comes to the use of torture.
Frey Le Maistre 26/11/08
Fringe Review.com
02/12/08
The Mumbai attacks made Theatre Absolute’s Zero’s dystopic vision of a world starkly divided by terror in the very near future seem even more eerily prescient. It is a great pity that the production’s successful national tour has just ended: now we need this sort of imaginative, fearless theatre if we are to avoid the fate the play predicts.
Zero is the story of one of hundreds of interrogation camps set up twenty years from now to extract information from detainees known only as ‘the others’. It is economics, we discover, rather than religion that has caused have-nots to attack Westerners on a large scale. In the world of Zero even rainwater is a commodity. Even fake rainwater.
The story’s broken time frame is seen through the memories of Tom, a reluctant soldier, brought in to interpret during brutal rounds of questioning. Tom, played with marvellous moral ambivalence by Stephen Hudson, forms unlikely relationships with a junior recruit (Daniel Hoffmann-Gill) and an inmate (Damian Lynch) as he begins to penetrate the camp’s darker secrets. Tom’s tragedy is that he is not a warrior poet or a lone voice of reason in a mad world; he is just an ordinary, flawed man whose stand against the terrible things he witnesses could never hope to succeed.
Chris O’Connell’s excellent writing and strong performances from all five cast members ensure that the emotional intensity remains in place as the play’s scope ranges from torture to pathos over barely 90 minutes without interval.
Theatre Absolute’s muscular storytelling, inventive use of soundscapes, pools of light and a simple scaffold set lend Zero a fast, fierce urgency to match the importance of the subject matter. I hope it returns soon. The Cottesloe at the National would be an ideal venue.
- David Trennery
Artshub 04/12/08
04/12/08