Silent Disco

Silent Disco is supposed to let the audience hear the characters’ thoughts through headphones, turning a relationship story into something part play, part stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, the headphones were not working on the day I saw it, so what remained was simply a straight play told in short scenes.

The result was dull. The writing was lukewarm; the performances were over-boiled; and the themes around mental illness and psychology were largely sidelined. The narrative itself was disjointed, and without the central piece of technology the production had very little to fall back on.

Had the headphones worked, it might have been a decent show. But I wouldn’t know. I can say, however, that the more fundamental problem is that the play seemed to rely too heavily on the external device in the first place. The core needs to be what is happening on stage, not what headsets you do or don't put over the audience’s ears.