There are lots of puzzles in this new piece from TG Works, written and directed by Tommaso Giacomin. We can all guess the play isn’t really about the famous actor. Rather, this is Alec Baldwin as a kind of Everyman figure, with a bit of Jean Paul Sartre thrown in. It becomes clear (a little too slowly) that something bad has happened to this Alec. He’s in a sorry state and trying to work things out with A.I. As experiments go, the character’s therapy, and this absurdist comedy, are confusing but fun.
The humour is a surprise as there’s a lot of angst here. And while the opaque narrative is deliberate, it is still frustrating. Spoilers ahead, which is a shame, but the trauma is peculiar. I get recounting the price of a pint in The Fitzrovia Tavern can be disturbing. But what about a man with a hoover? A polyglot woman covered in blood? Or a guy with a Bertie Basset style head wearing just his pants (that one might ruin my Christmas Liquorice Allsorts).
Head-scratching aside, the performances are admirably committed. A quintet – James Aldred, Stefanie Brucknerm, Manuela Pierri, Mathias Augestad Ambjør and Bartel Jespers – perform with gusto. And while the set slows down the action (a giant armchair takes too long to inflate) the show contains memorable imagery. The exploration of A.I. is witty. And a couple of intense scenes (aided by Aldred’s video and sound design) with social media clips and a live news feed are unpleasantly effective.
Unfortunately, the puzzle about what went on isn’t quite powerful enough. It all comes down to a general anxiety disorder, akin to ‘the overwhelm’ beloved by Guardian editorials, which makes the experiment undertaken too generic. This problem is intimated in the way the piece doesn’t quite know how to end. Should it be the nice dance number everyone joins? That’d be jolly. Or the eloquent soliloquy from Alec? Instead, we end with the revelation about what happened to him. But the tragic conclusion doesn’t convince, it just depresses.
Until 24 March 2026