Whistleblower @ C Nova

Review by Kayleigh Donaldson | 19 Sep 2013

Immersive theatre company Immercity have a new piece, and it couldn’t be timelier. In the month that Chelsea Manning is sentenced to over 30 years in prison for leaking classified documents, but found not guilty of aiding the enemy, Whistleblower puts the audience in the place of the jury and asks if they would come to a similar conclusion.

An anonymous soldier is put on trial for the same crimes as Manning. The cool, logical prosecution present their case while a journalist serving as the defence (think Glenn Greenwald) quotes Jefferson and passionately repeats his client’s view of the crumbling façade of democracy he hoped to expose. A brown envelope of evidence is handed out to each audience member/juror and we are asked to discuss and deliberate. The experience is fleeting and dependent on each audience’s willingness to become involved. Some of the tension is dissipated because of this but the final count of verdicts still raised a few heart rates.

The piece is impeccably researched but impossible to separate from one’s knowledge of the events it is inspired by. As a result, where real jurors are forbidden from reading secondary news reports of the case to avoid bias, the audience have mostly already made up their mind. Not enough time is given for the piece to make any real impact or change any points of view. It is hard to become fully immersed in such circumstances, and while Whistleblower has good intentions and strong writing behind it, it’s inevitably limited by real life.

Run ended http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/whistleblower