Teh Internet Is Serious Business
Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs
4 October 2014
2 Stars
Probably, the clue should have been in the title. When the word “The” is misspelt as “Teh” it must mean something…surely? A rage against auto-correct facilities on computers? An indication that correctness of language is not necessary on the internet? A suggestion that haste is part of the new web world order? The notion that spelling doesn’t matter?
Or perhaps it’s just a PR gimmick? Although, if it was, you would probably expect the theatre staff to go with the gimmick, in the time-honoured Gypsy tradition.
But not at the Royal Court, where staff say “The” instead of “Teh” at the premiere production of Tim Price’s play Teh Internet Is Serious Business at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.
Although Serious is clue enough to be part of the title, Hamish Pirie’s directorial approach and overall concept revels in childish fantasy, the “safety” of coloured uniforms and toys, the wink-nod shield of anonymity and the over-riding sense that everything is a game. But there is nothing new or imaginatively theatrical about that; the world has perceived the internet/world wide web through that prism for years now. However foolishly.
Nor is there anything revelatory or illuminating about Price’s writing and whatever themes or issues he seeks to agitate are not immediately obvious through the short, loosely interlocking and connected scenes which form the narrative. The internet is a place where anyone can say they are anyone and where no one might ever know that; it’s a place where smart people can corrupt or destroy those not quite so smart; it’s a place where the freer imagination of youth might have the real power, not the government of the day; a place where lawlessness is considered a right.
There is nothing new in that.
Indeed, the Royal Court has just produced The Nether which, arguably, dealt with these issues in a cleverer way.
Of most interest here is the exploration of the essence of corruption.
In the opening scene, interrogators are slowly corrupted by their captives; ordinary folk are corrupted into gestalt avatar mode by their peers; business systems are corrupted by hackers; and, investigators/whistleblowers corrupt hackers by removing their anonymity.
The play’s most intriguing section comes when two online presences (embodied as nerd and silky cat) speak to each other in programme code (or at least that is what it seems to be) and seek to outdo and undo each other. The triumphant cat almost purrs with sensual achievement when the battle is won by her, but it is certainly fascinating to watch this odd, almost alien, exchange play out and to realise, with absolute certainty, that this sort of thing goes on every day, perhaps every hour, on the internet, sometimes in jest, sometimes as part of something entirely sinister.
The large (mostly excellent) cast give life to various tropes and memes that have over the years (still do) swept through the internet: the condescending Willy Wonka with the smart one-liner; the grumpy cat; the socially awkward penguin; the sad Storm Trooper, the activist group, Anonymous; many more. This is amusing and clever at first, but the device never really achieves any insight or apotheosis.
One of the difficulties with presenting pseudo-human avatars which are the creation of machines and the science that, like Atlas, holds the internet on its shoulders is that it is very hard to feel any empathy with such characters. They can be easy to despise or identify, but they are difficult to love or care for. Price does not solve this problem in the writing and nor does Pirie’s direction.
It is all rather dull in the end.
The set from Chloe Lamford is quite interesting and, happily, entirely avoids any obvious computer/screen landscape; rather, it is a netherworld, perhaps a hybrid of images from games with which people are familiar from wasted internet hours, perhaps a representation of the dull, grey blocks of modern life contrasted against the frenzy, colour and unexpected bouncing around that can be a hallmark of the internet experience for some. There is a sort of moat, filled with coloured bouncy balls, a floor and half-walls made of a bee-hive like set of connected grey squares, through which entrances and exits can be made, and, above the stage hang netting sacks full of multicoloured bouncy balls, like those in the “moat”, some of which, inevitably, are released onto the stage in happy chaos.
Many of the actors are very good, but it is not that easy to identify them. Unusually for the Royal Court, no text of the script (complete with full biographies of the cast) was available by way of a programme. “The play is still being written” was the explanation.
Indeed.
