Monopoly is as divisive a game as any. Alliances are formed, someone takes the stations, someone claims Mayfair, and someone (usually me) goes home crying. Yet, every Christmas in the post-dinner glow of a winter evening, the long game draws in the most mild-mannered of characters to its competition. Do Not Pass Go, I found, is a similarly long and enraging experience, but lacks the joy of knowing at least someone was walking away with Mayfair in their hands.
The play depicts Elizabeth Magie, the victim of a brutal theft. Her original boardgame — The Landlord’s Game — circulated around Economics students and then Quakers’ homes during the Great Depression, aiming to display the benefits of a Single Tax on land. Charles Darrow, the thief in question, took an iteration of the game, sold it to the Parker Brothers, and ultimately became a millionaire off the back of it. His ‘iteration’ was, of course, Monopoly as we know it today.
Monopoly did wrongfully create a millionaire whilst ironically removing Magie’s anti-capitalist messaging — this much is clear within the first five minutes — but the rest of the 75-minute extravaganza seems better described as an exhibition of the performers’ creativity. Between interpretive dances dedicated to her different character traits (marriage refuser, boardgame creator), and a five-minute clown section depicting Darrow as an ineffectual door-to-door tie salesman, the play feels more “yes, and” than displaying dramatic justice.
“So there was this girl called Lizzie Magie,” the cast says in unison, “and she believed the world could be a better place.” This repetitiveness should have acted as a re-centring refrain to organise the physical representations of the Single Tax, and the breaking apart of a soft-play house. Instead, the structure is as repetitive as the music, which feels like a morning alarm attempting to pull me from sleep. The pacing is over-stretched, leading to sections routinely holding on for too long,
The play uses physical comedy to its fullest capabilities. A mix of clown and physical theatre, the triple act — Amy Helena, Melanie Jordan, and Diane Thornton — is expressive and committed. To more clown-prepared audiences, there would have been fewer walk-outs.
An interesting aspect of Do Not Pass Go is its incorporation of British Sign Language (BSL). Genuinely progressive and innovative, the play is entirely interpreted, without forcing BSL users to flick between the action on the main stage and a person dressed in black to the right.
Do Not Pass Go is camp, feminist, and physical, but the attempts by the performers to tie so many elements together leave the essential fact of a plot neglected. However, at its core is an interesting and under-appreciated story of a woman being cast aside by a man for profit. The play succeeds in sharing her story, educating an audience on the Christmas game we all love so much.
Image by Mihaela Bodlovic, provided to The Student for press use.
