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Voyeurism as Theater: 'Contains Violence'

by Zoe Strimpel
Fri, 9 May 2008

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"Contains Violence," at the Lyric Hammersmith, is a prime example of a
piece of theater that strives so hard to be fresh that it ends up being
not much at all. That said, it is worth going for the zany format alone.

The audience sits outside on a terrace (we were lucky; the weather was
warm and clear), and the show begins after sunset. Last night this was 9
p.m. On your way in, you are handed a pair of beefy headphones and a
pair of binoculars. What you're looking at, once you take your seats, are a couple of illuminated windows in an office block across the street. You put on the headphones, turn a couple of knobs, and suddenly the noise of traffic disappears and all you can hear is a mesmeric male voice, that of our narrator, who appears before us then disappears, only to reappear an hour later across the road in one of the windows.

First he tells us watch a woman in a dress, who is both irresistible and "a killer." She's just sitting at an ordinary desk, sometimes talking on the phone. We are next directed to look at a man in an office in the next building along — he is just tapping away at his computer. Then, the phone rings; it's the woman arranging a clandestine meeting in his office. Next thing you know, his clothes are off, and he's being brutally murdered, hacked at by the woman (who suddenly has a man's voice) with a stapler and other office weapons.

It's a Hitchcock-inspired show, which has admirably pulled out all the
stops to get us to explore the idea of voyeurism, to catch a glimpse of
the secret lives of people unaware of your gaze (of course, we were
watching actors). You can hear every whisper and groan across the street — there is no doubting the quality of the audio equipment.

But ultimately, David Rosenberg's play doesn't go anywhere with its
tremendous trope. (Mr. Rosenberg is a founder of Shunt, a successful
avant-garde theater company.) The set-up is not used to anywhere near full advantage, if only because there is little attempt to connect the
characters we're watching in any way that makes sense, and we are left
utterly clueless as to why we're watching a murder on repeat. It's all
very well not to give us the kitchen sink — after all, voyeurs don't get
context, that's the whole thrill — but some substance would have been
helpful. For a start, the narrator could have better conducted us through this surreal nightscape. He was hardly a narrator at all, as it turned out.

Worth a trip, though, and a snip at 15 pounds.

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