Review: THE EMPLOYEES, Southbank Centre

Photo credit: Natalia Kabanow

In the future, the earth is dead. ‘The organisation’ has hired the employees for an experiment. The employees consist of a group of humans and their identical, AI, humanoid counterparts and they are travelling through space on the 6000 spaceship...or, at least, they were. Told through a series of video reports left behind by the crew, watch as their daily routine gets interrupted by the mysterious appearance of objects from earth. When circuits and veins collide, questions arise: what does it mean to be synthetic? What does it mean to be alive? Can you tell the difference?

An adaptation of Olga Ravn’s science fiction book of the same name, the play first premiered at the Studio Theatre in Warsaw in January 2023, then it was taken on tour across Europe from August of that same year. This production marks director Lukaz Twarkowski’s London debut. Twarkowski’s previous work includes: Farinelli, Akropolis and, more notably, Grimm: Czarny Śnieg (which pioneered the use of virtual reality in Polish theatre). Considered to be one of theatre’s trailblazers, he uses technology, film, and installation, in combination with a range of theatrical techniques to challenge the limitations of communication and explore the complicated relationship between the tangible and the imagined.

It’s opening night and as we enter the auditorium, we are awe struck. Since the show is in Polish with English subtitles, we came in thinking that it would work like a captioned performance with a screen at the side of the stage, but there were multiple screens integrated into the stage. The large screens sit just above the spaceship and smaller ones are placed just in front of each entrance to the ship. These screens display a combination of recorded videos, AI generated imagery and a live-feed of the action happening inside the ship. Lights and coloured cellophane are incorporated into the box-like structure, establishing the sci-fi landscape from the outset. Theatre in the round has never looked so futuristic.

As well as this, the audience is invited to sit on the stage, walk around during the performance to watch the action happening inside the ship and change seats during the short breaks in the show. All of this creates a fully immersive experience like no other by allowing the audience to watch the scenes from as many different angles as possible because they can be seen from the stage and on the screens. However, the video displays on the large and small screens deliberately don’t always align, which forces the audience to see differing perspectives in real time, constantly challenging any ideas or conclusions about the story they may have come to.

Add in music, which is so loud at points that the ground vibrates, and bright, multicoloured, flashing lights and what you get is deliberate sensory overload as the audience experiences everything all at once. This may seem off putting, but it is so well balanced, with periods of sensory calmness during the scenes, which just allow the characters to talk about their memories of being on earth, and periods of single colour wash lighting during less intense moments.

Yes, this is a very full on and chaotic show but it is purposefully done and expertly executed. The purpose of it being to blur the lines between the real and the synthetic. As previously mentioned, in the story, each employee (given cadet numbers rather than names), has an AI humanoid counterpart. This makes it hard to tell who is human and who is not, which is further confused when items from earth mysteriously appear, triggering responses which consist of elements of memory, sexual desire, connection and material desire. All things ‘the organisation’ says an android is not supposed to have nor want.

This makes an already engaging story even more engaging because whenever we think we’ve made a distinction between the two, something will happen which sends us back to square one. At times, this can be very unsettling because this kind of future doesn’t feel too far away but on other occasions, it can be comforting because it allows us to see potential pathways for a better future. It asks us if it is possible to see humanity in the inhuman and vice versa, making this story hauntingly unforgettable.

The talent of the cast is beyond doubt.

Robert Wasiewicz, who plays Cadet 4/B4, is definitely one to watch. He has an uncanny ability to subvert expectations by challenging character stereotypes. He imbues Cadet 4 with human carelessness and love of simple, purposeless things like smoking cigarettes on a break at work, whilst he gives B4 a keen sense of mourning for memories of the natural world which, as an android, he isn’t supposed to have. He blurs the line between the two flawlessly through his detailed physicality, making his scenes some of the most impactful.

Sonia Roszczuk, who plays Cadet 29/B29, is the diamond in the rough of the show. Her characters are easy to overlook with their silent and understated demeanours, but that’s what makes the quality of her portrayals so brilliant. They are artistically styled out so that her character’s silent agonies are communicated purely through body language to show a shutdown after a traumatic experience is not exclusive to humanity. Considering that the audience is never told who the disembodied voice of ‘the organisation is’ or what the experiment that is being conducted is for, the audience begins to wonder what they’ve put Cadet 29 through before this.

The cast’s vast array of physical storytelling skills creates a disturbing atmosphere as the audience begins to question what could possibly have caused such visceral reactions from the employees, making the audience feel increasingly more and more uncomfortable and shocked to the core as they come to understand how much power ‘the organisation’ has over the employees.

Immersive theatre at its finest. A masterclass in direction, which transcends the world of what we think theatre is, beyond what we consider to be possible and enters the infinite galaxy of what theatre could be. Twarkowski is a visionary.

***** Five stars

Reviewed by: Megan O’Neill

The Employees plays at London’s Southbank Centre until 19 January, with further info here.