Schrödinger at Contact
Andrew Anderson
Some plays perfectly capture the political picture of the time they were created in – plays like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, for example, which protested the on-going constitutional assaults of Joseph McCarthy and his cronies.
Then there are those plays that paint a landscape that has yet to come, their true power only revealed once the world has caught up with them. Schrödinger, which is on at Contact this May, is just such a play.
First produced 20 years ago, Schrödinger depicts a place where nothing is what it seems, where no one knows who has power and who is a puppet, and where once-strong words have become dust.
Trapdoors form a visual metaphor as the protagonists struggle to tell up from down, in from out and right from wrong. It’s a striking piece of symbolism, and makes for one of the most interesting set designs I’ve seen in a while, where cast members can come in through almost any angle.
Schrödinger is produced by Reckless Sleepers, whose works are always off-kilter – their 2014 show A String Quartet, for example, featured five ladies sawing chairs into pieces while sitting them – which makes them the perfect company for this chaotic work.
