Instructions

Each night of this show’s run, a different performer arrives on stage alone.  On my night, we got Tomas (my computer won’t supply the appropriate accents on his name) Kantor.  He was brilliant.  I say ‘was’ because he’s not doing this again.

The performer/actor, in this case Tomas, knows only that they will be called upon (‘instructed’) to perform a script they’ve never seen - the text of which is on a teleprompter. 

There is no director – in the conventional sense – but the performer will be directed to do certain things.  Those instructions, via headphones, are projected on a large screen at the back and above the stage; we see them, but we don’t hear them.

Tomas is told that he is to play an actor called ‘Tomas’ – to which he reacts with some relief.  ‘Oh, that’s all right.’  He is there to audition for a role in a movie called LOVE IN PARIS.  He takes up a position in front of a video camera, and his audition is projected on the screen. 

So far, Tomas is cheerful and seems confident.  He is given dialogue to say but then told to say it in numerous different ways.  He manages that – and it’s funny.  But then he is asked to supply a very quick-fire series of reactions and responses... in seconds.  He has to change spontaneously and immediately. There’s something absurd and rather frightening about this.

The tension, for us in the audience, comes from our investment in Tomas.  He seems a thoroughly nice man and we want him to succeed.  He does succeed.  It’s amazing how good and how quick he is...  Apparently, the director thinks so too: Tomas gets the part.  Tomas is over the moon – just as he is instructed to be.  So far, so good. 

But now begins a series of bewildering twists in the tale, to reveal which would destroy the game Nathan Ellis is playing with us – and with Tomas, who is genuinely bewildered – and that’s the point Ellis wants to make.  Suffice to say that Tomas’ amazing range of line readings and reactions have been captured and can now be manipulated and used.

We laugh at the final twists, but we laugh very uneasily.  Instructions is relatively simple, and it makes its point decisively.  What we have enjoyed and been most impressed by (really) is the way the unprepared Tomas has risen to the audition challenge and then has had to deal with the aftermath.   I’m almost curious enough to go again and see how others perform exactly the same thing.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Alex Brenner