The Viewing Room

Synopsis

A solution to chronic prison overcrowding leads to convicted criminals being housed with ordinary citizens in their homes: A young couple have 'volunteered' to do social service, choosing to take in a prisoner ostensibly soon to be released back into the community. 'Their' prisoner comes housed in a cage and is accompanied with an instruction manual with rules of engagement, and their apartment is fitted with surveillance equipment. Their 'superiors' have a range of ways of maintaining a dominant contact and control of behaviour within the apartment. The couple have become unpaid prison guards. But gradually they discover that their prisoner is not who they think he might be, that their trust has been betrayed, that their prisoner's crime is ...indistinct, that their flat may become a suburb of death row. The State is baying, but who is to die?

Our Review:

6 March 2008

It’s a bad sign when the menacing line, “Welcome to Death Row!”, closes Act 1 to barely muffled sniggers from the audience. A dramatic premise and daring vision of the future ultimately disappoint in this overwrought production. However, featuring the brooding presence of Heroes star Leonard Roberts, it is bound to sell out.

Writer Daniel Joshua Rubin’s idea is a simple and startling one. In a not a too distant future America, where people conduct global careers from their living room laptops and only venture into the polluted city in smog masks, Brian and his wife are a liberal WASPish couple, with a caged convict in their living room.

High-fliers with a social conscience (although Brian’s company makes a mint from the Domestic Incarceration Services security system) they are committed to rehabilitating their charge. Inevitably the situation changes their lives more violently than either foresee. Their prisoner is a murderer; th...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Peter Johnson - 11 March 2008:

Did we see the same play? I thought the performance was engaging and entertaining. The Viewing Room offers an interesting take on a potential future which isn't so far from the way the US runs prisons and executions. Any racsim under pinning the play is a social comment on the massive disproportionate number of black prisoners in the US prison system and the difficult issues is raises. I felt the performances from the cast were strong, Leonard Roberts managed to really dominate from his cage adding a real sense of tension to the theatre. This is clearly a play that will improve over the run like a fine wine. I would certainly recommend going to see it. Fans of Leonard Roberts are in for a treat. A great night out that raises some interesting issues as well as a few surprises!...

Read more and add your own review