Are You Watching? at the Royal Court Theatre

When all experience is eminently commodifiable, it’s not so much a question of whether you’re watching as whether it makes any difference how you feel about it. The many shapeshifting protagonists of Georgia Dettmer’s ambitious debut engage with filmed material in differing ways: some seek it out, others bear inadvertent witness, others are made into content themselves before they even really know it’s happening. Over the course of the show’s fleet 65 minutes, we are shuttled from porn gone violently wrong to carefully airbrushed displays of public trauma from bereaved parents (crying is preferred); from those watching the “content” to those making it, and many are sure to object vehemently as they consume and are consumed in equal measure.

The distressed parent of a missing girl (Lucy McCormick) protests the real-time packaging and selling of her own grief, but is worn down by a constant run of sweet talk on the importance of image maintenance from a pair of television producers (they cite the impression made by the big, peering eyes of Madeleine McCann). Meanwhile, a candidate for a curious sort of psychological trial (Maimuna Memon) involving the watching of explicit sexual videos declares her faith in her own moral backbone, the kind enabling her to react to the disturbing, violent turns of the content with horror and disgust. Nonetheless, her moral outrage is irrelevant. The violent, seemingly non-consensual turn within the videos betrayed the highest degree of interest – even arousal – on her part, much to the satisfaction of those carrying out the test. And indeed, as two stage-side observers (Kosar Ali and Abby McCann) cling raptly to their bunk beds, equally appalled and fascinated, it would seem that when it comes to the digital age of consumption, the more salacious the better. The point is trenchantly made, though its various delivery systems vary in effectiveness.

These two aforementioned audience surrogates are the closest thing Are You Watching? has to a unifying story thread, excitedly sharing details of the worst things they’ve ever seen before bearing voyeuristic witness to the alternating vignettes that play out within the single, claustrophobic rectangular space at stage centre. Each is separated only by a swift costume change and by the blaring of a single, abrasive shriek (courtesy of sound designer XANA, the result is piercing enough to ensure that no one seated on either side of the stage is able to get too comfortable at any point). The show may be splintered by design, but sometimes this fragmentary approach can leave you wishing for a single, fully realised story thread instead of the brief drop-ins we get with so many (others in the mix include a suburban father with an AI-assisted sexual indiscretion, as well as an 18-year-old in search of his first sexual experience). Mileage may vary on which of these vignettes is more effective, but while some feel unnervingly on-target for the queasiest possibilities of the screen era, others feel PSA-like in their bluntness.

In spite of this, the performers never falter, with McCormick in particular flexing impressive range as she oscillates between a Hollywood megastar (one battling an image problem more insidiously literal than most) and a grieving parent still clutching her child’s stuffed animal as if it were the sole anchor to gravity left. There is also, in the homestretch, a terrifically unnerving piece of stagecraft as the stage is slowly, quietly flooded with dark, murky water that goes largely unacknowledged. The rot has already followed us all home, making a place for itself outside of our screens and inside our heads. The waters can only rise from here.

Overall, Are You Watching? marks an ambitious theatrical debut by Georgie Dettmer, with a purposely fragmented structure that produces mixed results. Though some vignettes lean more towards the heavy-handed, others strike upon an authentic moral outrage and horror. When exiting the theatre, one may well feel inclined to keep one’s phone off and seek out the nearest shower, which may be the highest praise one can grant director Jess Edwards’s production.