The Grönholm Effect

by Jordi Galceran

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 26 May 2018

B T McNicholl directs Jonathan Cke, Greg McHugh, Laura Pitt-Fulford and John Gordon Sinclair in this Spanish play (translated by Anne Garcia-Romero and Mark St. Germain) which recounts an interview process for an executive job in a high-flying but unspecified business. In this version the interview is taking place in New York, but the American setting is not crucial.

The four characters discover that this, their fourth round interview, is to be conducted jointly, which strikes them as odd. It soon becomes clear that the interview process itself is unconventional, as instead of meeting a panel, or even a single person, the four are presented with a series of tasks and challenges, the instructions arriving impersonally in envelopes addressed to one or more of them which appear in a mysteriously opening drawer at appropriate times.

The set-up may be artificial, but it triggers reactions and strategies which are revealing of the candidates' personalities and priorities, and presents for the audience some fine set-pieces of aggressive and self-centred behaviour. At the same time there are some clever surprises, as both the candidates and we the audience must work out whether there is a 'plant' (a company employee) and if so which person it is. It follows that other challenges may reflect reality or may be cunning distortions or merely play-acting; we are constantly being wrong-footed, and part of the enjoyment is that we, as audience, are not implicated so we can also enjoy the discomfiture of the candidates.

It's entertaining, fast-paced, and able to keep surprises coming even into the final moments of the play, but at the same time, we are not invited to be especially interested in the candidates as people. There is, for instance, little evidence that any of them has a real hunger for the job - but of course this is matched by the fact that the job itself is not really specified; it is merely the trigger for the entertainment.