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Brainstare
A terrifying new program has been developed—it allows employers to view the memories of their employees! Companies will know everything their workers have experienced. Some welcome this technology. Others the new play by Joseph Suglia
138 pages, Paperback
Published April 25, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 7, 2025
Note: This is the same review I shared on Amazon
Brainstare by Joseph Suglia
Before I move forward with the review, please be aware that I have not spent a lot of time reading plays, unlike most other forms of writing. So, this review might have a unique perspective. Through WordPress, I have come to be acquainted with writer Joseph Suglia, who allowed me to read his 2023 play Brainstare.
The premise of Brainstare, a play in two acts, involves a corporation that has developed a computer program allowing employers to view the memories of their employees. Companies will now be able to know everything their workers have experienced. One of the three characters in the play, Anthony, has been instructed to submit to the process or lose not only his job but also his romantic partner and co-worker, Sheba, as well as ruin any potential future employment. When he decides to go through this process, Anthony will be monitored by the third and final character, the Invigilator.
After reading Brainstare, I have to say that it is a unique think piece, and in many ways ahead of its time, but also very relevant considering recent developments in real life and media. First, the recent and rapid firing of many U.S. federal government employees. How these releases are being handled could very well affect how people find a job in the future. Then we have the futuristic nature of the computer program Brainstare, and I instantly saw a connection to the critically acclaimed science fiction thriller Severance that is now streaming.
As to the play itself, particularly in the first act, I will say that the dialogue has a distinctive rhythm. In Joseph Suglia’s notes to the reader, he mentioned the influence of August Strindberg and his style of theatrical dialogue that is fragmentary, repetitious, and therefore verisimilar. Suglia also mentioned that because of this style, the three speaking characters are inapprehensible. This may make reading the play for the first time a challenge if you don’t know what to expect and are unfamiliar with August Strindberg.
I would say at times the dialogue can be an interesting part of the story to digest – but this also leads you to remember that a play is meant to be seen and heard. I will say this: I would love to watch a table read of this piece with Sheba and Anthony, with different interpretations on tone and expression. I could even see, in some interpretations of the play, that the Invigilator could be played by the same actor who plays Sheba.
At times, Act One can be a little slow – depending on what a character brings to the role of Anthony or Sheba, it could bring more nuance. Act Two’s pace more than makes up for Act One, with the Invigilator bringing a sharp nature to the play.
Again, as I am not as familiar with the playwriting experience as others, I may not be the best to give my opinion, but I find a lot of value in Brainstare. With the current climate of the world, this play could take on a lot of different meanings.
I highly recommend this play, Brainstare. And I would highly recommend that any employment agreement you sign at work – make sure you read the fine print.
Brainstare by Joseph Suglia
Before I move forward with the review, please be aware that I have not spent a lot of time reading plays, unlike most other forms of writing. So, this review might have a unique perspective. Through WordPress, I have come to be acquainted with writer Joseph Suglia, who allowed me to read his 2023 play Brainstare.
The premise of Brainstare, a play in two acts, involves a corporation that has developed a computer program allowing employers to view the memories of their employees. Companies will now be able to know everything their workers have experienced. One of the three characters in the play, Anthony, has been instructed to submit to the process or lose not only his job but also his romantic partner and co-worker, Sheba, as well as ruin any potential future employment. When he decides to go through this process, Anthony will be monitored by the third and final character, the Invigilator.
After reading Brainstare, I have to say that it is a unique think piece, and in many ways ahead of its time, but also very relevant considering recent developments in real life and media. First, the recent and rapid firing of many U.S. federal government employees. How these releases are being handled could very well affect how people find a job in the future. Then we have the futuristic nature of the computer program Brainstare, and I instantly saw a connection to the critically acclaimed science fiction thriller Severance that is now streaming.
As to the play itself, particularly in the first act, I will say that the dialogue has a distinctive rhythm. In Joseph Suglia’s notes to the reader, he mentioned the influence of August Strindberg and his style of theatrical dialogue that is fragmentary, repetitious, and therefore verisimilar. Suglia also mentioned that because of this style, the three speaking characters are inapprehensible. This may make reading the play for the first time a challenge if you don’t know what to expect and are unfamiliar with August Strindberg.
I would say at times the dialogue can be an interesting part of the story to digest – but this also leads you to remember that a play is meant to be seen and heard. I will say this: I would love to watch a table read of this piece with Sheba and Anthony, with different interpretations on tone and expression. I could even see, in some interpretations of the play, that the Invigilator could be played by the same actor who plays Sheba.
At times, Act One can be a little slow – depending on what a character brings to the role of Anthony or Sheba, it could bring more nuance. Act Two’s pace more than makes up for Act One, with the Invigilator bringing a sharp nature to the play.
Again, as I am not as familiar with the playwriting experience as others, I may not be the best to give my opinion, but I find a lot of value in Brainstare. With the current climate of the world, this play could take on a lot of different meanings.
I highly recommend this play, Brainstare. And I would highly recommend that any employment agreement you sign at work – make sure you read the fine print.
October 9, 2025
As posted to Amazon -
Let it be declared at the outset that this play aspires to function as a thesaurus of the coming corporate eschaton—the definitive lexicon for the managerial neologisms and syntactical self-immolations destined to populate the post-AI revolution. It could, in fact, serve as the ur-manual for an eventual performance-evaluation algorithm—a system designed not merely to monitor, but to self-monitor, recursively, until the distinction between labor and observation evaporates entirely.
As an individual with aphantasia—an imaginal blindness inflicted by frontal-lobe trauma—I found this work less an artistic encounter than an ontological mirror. It is an echo chamber of my own struggle as a corporate NPC, an organic automaton striving to maintain operational instrumentality within the calcified hierarchies of a hyper-surveilled workplace technocracy.
The play exposes the slow, algorithmic erosion of individuality under what might be called corporate panopticism: a system where every keystroke, pre-employment psychometric, and browser tab from adolescence is categorized, cross-referenced, and libidinally tributed (yes, in both senses) to the data archives of managerial omniscience. Within this new company-store dystopia, Maslow’s hierarchy has been franchised—your physiological, social, and existential needs bundled neatly into a single payroll-deducted benefits package. Why pursue love or meaning externally when your employer can algorithmically simulate both?
Our protagonist, Anthony, embodies this paradox. Under the affectionately coercive guidance of his supervisor-cum-lover, he faces the existential demand of the Brainstare—a low-impact cognitive audit masquerading as self-care. It is both performance review and lobotomy, a bureaucratic baptism into total transparency. Through this process, Anthony attains a chilling species of self-actualization—a transcendence achieved not through freedom, but through the ecstatic surrender of all remaining privacy.
If Blade Runner interrogated the humanity of androids, this play interrogates the androidization of humans. If Gattaca obsessed over DNA, this world obsesses over mnemonic purity. And if Fight Club fetishized chaos, this text fetishizes compliance. I cannot picture any of these cinematic analogues, of course—my aphantasia forbids such luxuries—but I can apprehend their logic in words, which is, perhaps, the only surviving form of imagination left to us.
Joseph Suglia once again descends into the dimmest recesses of the human psyche—those shadowed corridors where desire, cognitive rebellion, and societal compliance intersect in mutually assured destruction. In this play, he dissects not merely the mind under capitalism, but the soul under observation, offering a mirror so uncomfortably clear that one can almost see the algorithm staring back.
Let it be declared at the outset that this play aspires to function as a thesaurus of the coming corporate eschaton—the definitive lexicon for the managerial neologisms and syntactical self-immolations destined to populate the post-AI revolution. It could, in fact, serve as the ur-manual for an eventual performance-evaluation algorithm—a system designed not merely to monitor, but to self-monitor, recursively, until the distinction between labor and observation evaporates entirely.
As an individual with aphantasia—an imaginal blindness inflicted by frontal-lobe trauma—I found this work less an artistic encounter than an ontological mirror. It is an echo chamber of my own struggle as a corporate NPC, an organic automaton striving to maintain operational instrumentality within the calcified hierarchies of a hyper-surveilled workplace technocracy.
The play exposes the slow, algorithmic erosion of individuality under what might be called corporate panopticism: a system where every keystroke, pre-employment psychometric, and browser tab from adolescence is categorized, cross-referenced, and libidinally tributed (yes, in both senses) to the data archives of managerial omniscience. Within this new company-store dystopia, Maslow’s hierarchy has been franchised—your physiological, social, and existential needs bundled neatly into a single payroll-deducted benefits package. Why pursue love or meaning externally when your employer can algorithmically simulate both?
Our protagonist, Anthony, embodies this paradox. Under the affectionately coercive guidance of his supervisor-cum-lover, he faces the existential demand of the Brainstare—a low-impact cognitive audit masquerading as self-care. It is both performance review and lobotomy, a bureaucratic baptism into total transparency. Through this process, Anthony attains a chilling species of self-actualization—a transcendence achieved not through freedom, but through the ecstatic surrender of all remaining privacy.
If Blade Runner interrogated the humanity of androids, this play interrogates the androidization of humans. If Gattaca obsessed over DNA, this world obsesses over mnemonic purity. And if Fight Club fetishized chaos, this text fetishizes compliance. I cannot picture any of these cinematic analogues, of course—my aphantasia forbids such luxuries—but I can apprehend their logic in words, which is, perhaps, the only surviving form of imagination left to us.
Joseph Suglia once again descends into the dimmest recesses of the human psyche—those shadowed corridors where desire, cognitive rebellion, and societal compliance intersect in mutually assured destruction. In this play, he dissects not merely the mind under capitalism, but the soul under observation, offering a mirror so uncomfortably clear that one can almost see the algorithm staring back.
November 28, 2025
Different
I found this story and or play,interesting. I agreed with the character not wanting to submit to the testing. In the end,he was justified in his reluctance.
I found this story and or play,interesting. I agreed with the character not wanting to submit to the testing. In the end,he was justified in his reluctance.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews