This Hitchcockian tale of a suave, innocent, advertising man accidentally swept up in a, shall we say, explosive conspiracy is a tightly choreographed and highly physical thriller featuring performers that build entire worlds out of thin air.
This slick caper produced by Voloz Collective begins with introducing Frenchman Roger Clement, an advertising man, living the high life in New York City. Roger’s life runs like clockwork, with a routine he never wanders from. At work, he dreams up catchy slogans for products like Coca-Cola to the adoration of his colleagues. Roger’s life is like an advert of what success looks like. Until it’s not. One morning in 1963 (the year in which the story is set becomes more important later in the story), Roger is unable to stick to his routine when he misses his train. This glitch means that he isn’t around when his office blows up. Demanding answers, Roger then sets off on a globe-trotting adventure where he discovers a dastardly scheme that means his life isn’t the only one that hangs in the balance.
Players Olivia Zerphy, Paul Lofferon, Emily Wheatman and Sam Rayner perform ingenious choreography to portray the environments Roger walks through on his travels. This choreography and how it is performed is a remarkable example of how to bring a story’s world to life for a live audience. Everything from a dial-up phone to the outside of a plane to a Texas saloon bar is physically represented by the movements and shapes the performers make using their bodies. Consequently, during Roger’s quest to find those who blew up his office, the places he travels to feel oddly tangible despite the lack of set furniture and props. The choreography even adds a layer of tension to scenes like one where Roger contorts in between lasers in a secure area. Although there are no actual lasers present, how the performers arrange their bodies to represent a room crisscrossed with lasers makes the suspension of disbelief easy to achieve.
It did feel like the show had multiple endings as the various surprises were revealed. The story could have been contracted a little in the third act to improve the pacing of it. Yet, the definite ending of the story was hugely satisfying as it offered a hilarious, clever final rug-pull that much like a Hitchcock film, warrants repeat viewing of the show to see how the ending was foreshadowed, how the truth was hidden in plain sight.
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