Spare

Synopsis

A look at human brutality and sexual abuse. In an unusual experiment in gender-neutral writing and gender-blind casting, the actors performing the roles will change for each performance: every night will begin with the performers selecting their character’s name at random. With 40,032 different possible casting combinations, each performance presents a different nuance to the power balance in the relationships at the heart of the play.

Our Review:

22 September 2010

"You will get whatever I want you to get. And do whatever I want you to do." So rests the premise of Spare showing at promising new venue the New Diorama Theatre. It is a nasty sentiment, but then what can one expect from a show that focuses squarely on the in’s and out’s (sometimes literally) of human abuse.

Mirroring the anagram of its title (from ‘rapes’ apparently) the casting of the performers is switched around at random each performance around resulting in an entirely different configuration each night. Written in a gender neutral style this is a democratic pick and mix that is meant to represent ‘How to screw up a society in 40,320 ways’.

There is undoubtedly an interesting otherworldliness to Spare created by this sexless jumble sale but it is an awkward one. Sitting somewhere between bad Beckett and the cartoon silliness of Dario Fo, the continuous interchange means the actors a...

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