Victory Condition Is A Long And Uninspiring 55 Minutes
Looks like this article is a bit old. Be aware that information may have changed since it was published.
Last Updated 18 October 2017
A young couple enter a bland modern flat and do bland, modern things like tidying up the kitchen, fiddling with their phones and eating pizza. The pair don’t interact with each other verbally as they potter around the flat. Instead they each address the audience directly with alternating snatches of long and often puzzling streams of consciousness about terrible things happening in the world: snipers shooting lone women in the town square, dead children washing up on beaches, and other assorted horrors. It’s not a subtle device at all: think of Nero fiddling while Rome burns and you've pretty much got it sussed.
The language is poetic at times if overly wordy. Jonjo O'Neil' and Sharon Duncan-Brewster give perfectly fine performances and even if the content is mostly incomprehensible it's not unbearable to listen to. Although it works to an extent, overall, this is a very long fifty-five minutes and makes for much less inspiring viewing than you'd expect.
Victory Condition, The Royal Court Theatre. £12-38, until 21 October 2017.
