screwmachine/eyecandy

by C.J. Hopkins

As a metaphor for the unaccountable, bullying, shape-changing and fear-mongering face of power in our increasingly media-driven consumer democracies, it could hardly be more potent. One of the angriest and most chilling pieces of political theatre on this year's Fringe. - Joyce MacMillan, The Scotsman

80 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2007

About the author

C.J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays have been produced internationally and are published by Bloomsbury/Methuen and Broadway Play Publishing. His writing awards include the 2002 First of the Fringe Firsts in Edinburgh, Scotsman Fringe Firsts in 2002 and 2005, and the 2004 Best of the Adelaide Fringe award. His essays are published by Skyhorse Publishing and Consent Factory Publishing. His debut novel, ZONE 23 is published by Arcade Publishing.

Reviews

[Martin Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I say that was Vera, then that was Vera. On account of I'm the one running things here. Is that clear enough? I think it is. When you go and get your own show, Dan, then you can say who's Vera and who is not Vera. Until then, Dan, while you're here in my show, Vera is whoever the fuck I say she is.

I'm the commander--see, I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.

Two quotes, one from a maniacal quizmaster named Bob in C.J. Hopkins's magnificent play screwmachine/eyecandy, the other from President of the United States of America George W. Bush, juxtaposed here only to demonstrate how gosh-darned on-target this play seems to be.

screwmachine/eyecandy Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Big Bob (the full title) is one scary show. It's theater not merely as cautionary fable or wake-up call, but as urgent attempt to drag its audience kicking and screaming out of their chairs and onto a stage--any stage--where they might regain their rights and dignity and engage in their world with passion and vigor.

The play looks like a game show; well, like a game show in a living room. Well that's where game shows take place, isn't it? It also feels like a game show: contestants (here, Dan and Maura Brown, a typical ordinary American couple from Johnstown, New York or Johnstown, Pennsylvania, or one of those towns somewhere) are in their ordained places, and to wild applause the host Big Bob makes his entrance and starts to behave just like a game show host. You know: chit-chat with the contestants, wads of cash in his pockets, the promise that rules will be promulgated and questions will be asked.

But this week, Big Bob's announcer Chip Devlin booms out the news that the rules are: there are no rules. The questions start to not make sense. Order disintegrates into chaos and violence. Bob stops pretending to like the contestants. The center does not hold; things fall apart.

This is a play that's defiantly and smugly not a play; instead, a happening that spirals in and out of itself, sucking us in to its faux world and then spitting us out again, trying to focus us on what's going on in this particular room expressly so that when we leave it we'll stay focused on what's going on in all the other rooms we go to afterward. It's not an easy ride; it doesn't want to be.