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http://www.nightnews.net/fringe2008.htm#fac2

The Factory - Precarious
venue :: Zoo Southside
see links :: http://www.precarious.org.uk
category :: Dance & Physical Theatre
Reviewed date :: 25 08 08

Review: Opting for an overtly political piece of theatre, the 
'Precarious' company utilise the full range of their skills in
dance, visual design and multimedia to come up with their own 
particular version of social comment fit for our age. The production
values and dance in 'The Factory' are all excellent and the show 
is packed with visual imagery and stunning technological devices.
The human aspect of the narrative is represented by 'B' a new 
recruit inducted into the factory. The Huxleyesque sci fi landscape
is populated with acronyms and stratified into different classes 
of worker. The predominant consciousness and speech is that of 
internalised marketing and advertising gobbledegook and life is
expressed by ownership of the products of the factory. The 
managerial classes continually hone and polish their controlling
false consciousness and go beyond spreading division with notions
of 'haves' and 'have-nots;' they introduce the latest state to
aspire to, the 'have-mores!' While this last could be taken as
strangely prescient of the collapsing financial world of the 
moment, the show sets this battle for the minds of workers in 
a human rights context. The relative absence of production lines 
in a predominantly collapsing UK service economy may make the 
shows more literal take on alienation a little late in the day.
However we all get the point and when the Factory becomes 
uncompetitive, that strange notion of 'doing more work for 
less pay,' is trotted out and heaped onto an already much abused
workforce. In the meantime the narrative has been presented with
the full range of agitprop technology and theatrical artistic 
intent and power. The dancing is novel and athletic, B and her
colleagues are all dazzlingly electric, the soundtrack is mostly
electronic and harmonious and much of the movement suitably
robotic. There are some especially stunning visual tableaus in
the show and the scene where dancers are brought onstage in 
clear plastic bags must count as one of these. At one stage there
are several female bodies hanging upside down on a rail with the 
words 'Buy Me,' projected overhead, they continue to dance. Not 
long after, when humans are literally packaged on the shop floor, 
it could be a metaphor crying out to say that anyone can be 
'bought and sold.' When the end comes, only a factory floor prefect
is within reach to be held to account by the workers. When the 
curtain falls he has been left in a crucifixion pose against a
projected smokestack. In this bleak future there is no scope for
industrial action, time is dead, history is over and this picture 
of the future is that of an insipid shoe shop where manufactured 
products and needless wants have contrived to pollute the world 
and devastate society. A somewhat stark message but thought provoking,
beautifully danced, cleverly presented and not too far from the 
truth.
5 gold bats

by John C Vassallo