Review by Daz Gale
⭐️⭐️
With the rise in AI and all the conversations that are being had around it, the latest show to open at Hampstead Theatre feels very timely. Add to that the fact it is written by the creator of Netflix series House Of Cards and that it boasts a star cast (though recent events have shown that is not a marker for success) and there is plenty of reason to be excited by East Is South. Would this hotly anticipated world premiere prove to be full of intelligence or would it all go south?
Written by Beau Willmon, East Is South sees two coders being interrogated after a security breach risks Logos, a sophisticated artificial intelligence programme on the verge of consciousness, from escaping its confines and causing a grave threat to humanity. This tense thriller attempts to ask the question of what it means to be human in a world where we are no longer the most evolved beings. At least, that’s what it attempts.
For all the good will it has, East Is South never really comes true on its promise. Instead, it is an overly wordy and confusing narrative that doesn’t seem to go anywhere and is increasingly hard to follow. With a show about artificial intelligence, the play aims to be intelligent in itself but in doing so has made it inaccessible to many. I couldn’t figure out if I was just being too stupid to understand what was going on or if nothing actually was going on – either way, if that goes through an audience members mind at any point, the writer has not done their job properly.
For a play about the rise of artificial intelligence, the humans seem to lack any kind of humanity whatsoever. Perhaps it was their intent for the audience to root for the programme rather than the people, but characters that were cold and soulless made the whole thing feel rather clinical with no chemistry whatsoever to be seen on that stage. On the rare moments where emotion or heightened feelings were allowed, it all felt rather unnatural. Again, I wonder if this was the complete intention and I was just missing the point completely, but as a theatregoer I found it impossible to connect with and as equally difficult to retain any interest in the subject matter, despite it being something I would usually find fascinating.
The direction was, sadly, equally stiff. Though Alex Eales’ multi-level design was well executed in itself with an interrogation room on one level and people observing above this, there was such a minimalistic lack of movement or any sort of action whatsoever, it all became very boring. It feels like the writing is most at fault here and the director could only do so much with the tools given, but the complete loss of humanity in East Is South is chiefly responsible for what I personally feel was the failure of it. There are a couple of decent moments through Zakk Hen’s video design but these don’t tend to fit in with the rest of the story – perhaps if there had been more moments like this, the show would have been more captivating.
Kaya Scodelario and Luke Treadaway are both wonderful actors, as proven with their impressive careers thus far, but as Lena and Sasha, they are never really given the right material to showcase their talents, with Scodelario getting glimpses of potential though these are dismissed relatively quickly, and Treadaway suffering with one of the most underwritten characters I have seen in many a month/ The nature of their relationship is never really explored in enough detail and so the chemistry is all too non-existent. I found that extremely disappointing knowing full well what both are capable of.
The cast of six all have imperfections of their own, with one of the interrogators lacking any real conviction with a wooden reading of their lines, and another character who might as well have been a prop given how little they had to do. The one ray of light in this was Cliff Curtis’ as Ari Abrams – the biggest character in the show in terms of personality and the only one who showed any sense of humanity. Their larger-than-life personality ensured my attention was retained throughout, though the skill of their performance only highlighted the inadequacies elsewhere.
East Is South has an intriguing premise and one that could have been incredible due to its timely nature. Unfortunately, in their static and waffly writing, they have forgotten the very essence of humanity, leaving a play that proved surprisingly unexciting as well as inaccessible. This was a play I had been looking forward to since its initial announcement but has sadly become a huge disappointment for me. It its purpose was to state the importance of humanity and how as a species, we can’t be replaced by AI, consider this a massive miss. Maybe it would have been better if it had been written by Artificial Intelligence?
East is South plays at Hampstead Theatre until 15th March. Tickets from www.hampsteadtheatre.com
Photos by Manuel Harlan