CONTRACCIONES

What would you do to keep your job? We never stop hearing that we should be grateful just to have a job, that the worst job in the world is better than no job at all and considering how things are, it’s best not to complain. In a world where we’re told that everything is about to crumble – climate crisis, economic crisis, energy crisis, nuclear war, future pandemics – Who really feels they can dream of a better future and fight to achieve it? We can barely look after what we’ve got and what we do have has become a gilded cage.

Are we part of a system, or do we just feed it? Does work really dignify us? Like all Mike Bartlett’s writing, this play boasts very precise dialogue. He selects each word meticulously, choosing punctuation or silence, always hiding a double meaning behind each dialogue, a Pandora’s box about to be opened to let out all his characters’ rage, anguish, pain, blood or vomit.

Contracciones is a fun yet cruel play, an Orwellian workplace dystopia with a touch of black humour, the perfect mixture between Black Mirror and The Office. Contracciones is a fencing match between two great actresses.