There’s a little bit of Minority Report running through the majority of Declan Coyle’s play, A GRAIN OF SAND, a Dick-ensian ( as in Philip K Dick) meditation on justice in a truly future technological state.
Dick imagined whether it was possible for freedom and independence and justice to arise in new ways under new conditions, and whether those new ways and conditions would improve or impede freedom and independence and create a new judgement system, and Coyle’s play picks up on this theme.
A GRAIN OF SAND begins with a woman addressing the audience much like a judge summing up before a jury. She then begins to interrogate Aedan, seemingly a prisoner in an enclosed cell with electrodes crowning his head.
Enter Monica, an AI replication, or “Shadow”, of his missing girlfriend. Committed to getting a confession from the clearly guilty party, the interrogator has Aedan trapped in a loop – living out his life with Monica again and again, waiting for Aedan to crack.
It’s technologically enhanced torture, manipulated memory coercion, supposedly giving sight to blind justice but instead a means of erradicating rectitude.
Put together in a nine day rehearsal at the peak of Covid, this production of A GRAIN OF SAND is impressive and marks the flowering of playwright to watch.
Directed with a zesty economy by Margaret Thanos, A GRAIN OF SAND features Enoch Li as Aeden, Kelly Robinson as Monica, and Susanna Pang as The Interrogator.
Producer: Natalie Low Set & Costume Design: Kaitlyn Symons Lighting Design: Sophie Pekblimli Sound Design: Akesiu Poitaha Stage Manager Ebony Loloa
presented by Queen Hades Productions
A GRAIN OF SAND headlines the Panimo Pandemonium programme, a festival of new and early emerging artists at Kings Cross Theatre and plays till Jan 25.
https://www.kingsxtheatre.com/panimo-pandemonium-2022/grain-of-sand
http://www.kingsxtheatre.com/panimo-pandemonium
