A play about machines is pushed by a machine. This one is as arbitrary because the free-market tides that push employees out and in of their jobs. At intervals by the present a ball will drop on Hazel Low’s gantry set, all Amazon blues and yellows. Which aspect of the stage it lands, after a bagatelle journey to the bottom, determines the scene that follows. With 256 variations, no two performances of Joe Ward Munrow’s play can be alike.
You surprise, although, whether or not they are going to be all that totally different. The Legend of Ned Ludd is constructed from snapshots of commercial strife, every scene positioned like an equivalent brick in no matter order it reveals up.
My evening begins at a manufacturing facility in Detroit in 2016 the place a multinational is taking on and wages are being slashed. We transfer to some decorators in Liverpool, 1985, taking satisfaction in craftsmanship, and to a gathering of Marx and Engels in Paris, 1844, once they focus on the division of labour. In time, we’ll go to Nigeria, Libya and China.
After each couple of scenes, we return to Nottingham, 1816, the place the folkloric Ned Ludd – the unique Luddite – is galvanising his fellow employees to withstand the automation of the looms. All over the place, wages fall, high quality drops and earnings soar. Violence in direction of the machines comes subsequent. With out protest, who will bear in mind issues have been ever totally different?
In Jude Christian’s manufacturing, actors Reuben Johnson, Menyee Lai and Shaun Mason take surprisingly little pleasure within the unpredictability of the format. Their method, maybe appropriately, is workmanlike, tackling every scene with sombre focus. You possibly can, nonetheless, solely admire the agility of the backstage crew, serving up the fitting props, surtitles and lighting cues with robot-like effectivity.
However if you happen to count on a cumulative energy in these scenes, with their Brechtian independence, you may be disillusioned. Every is modestly fascinating however, being downbeat greater than galvanising, they’ve restricted political chew. Nor do they resonate a lot with one another. Within the age of AI, Joe Ward Munrow has lit upon an pressing theme, however that is too reflective a play to make anybody exit and smash the looms.
