by Lucy Prebble
seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 6 February 2020
Oscar Toeman directs Jessica Rhodes as Dani Carter, Ali Barouti as Lewis Sampson, John Hollingworth as Tim Saunders and Alexandra Gilbreath as Jan Carter (Dani's mother) in this first London revival of Lucy Prebble's first play, in which a teenager navigates her way from the often illusory world of chatrooms to encounters with the real people behind the names - encounters which may be more exciting but also more perilous.
The play opens with sounds familiar to older users of computers but probably completely foreign to those who have no idea of the tedium of dial-up phone connections. Actors prowl around the edge of the stage in dim blue light when they are in a chatroom, but use a lower central acting space when in the real world. Though the conversations between mother and daughter indicate a level of technology now long superseded, the issues and tensions in the play are still strikingly relevant and disturbing.
