Picture a not-so-distant future where ambitious corporate climbers have to engage in mortal combat for their next promotion. Such is the setting for Sebastian Archibald's The Competition is Fierce, the latest in-your-face theatre production from ITSAZOO.
The play introduces two Wall Street workers named John – one nebbish and smart, one cocksure and inexperienced – who want not only the same job, but the same woman (Rachel Cairns). The problem is only one John is legitimately worthy of either.
The first John (Chris Cochrane) has worked for the company in accounting for years, and has solid ideas of how to turn around a long stretch of losses. The second John (Carlo Marks) is the son of the recently defenestrated director of finance, and was only in the building to pick up his dad's meagre belongings. His candidacy (and continued existence in the play) should have been questioned there, but apparently the company's sadistic CEO (Marilyn Norry), while a fan of laying loyal employees off and closing factories to retain salaries, also likes to "keep things in the family."
The mandatory executive training program then begins and the two Johns try to expose each other's weaknesses over a three-week period of working together (read: taunting the shit out of each other, to a lot of legitimate laughs), until finally arena day arrives, and they don their most killer business attire and enter the ring.
For a play that could use a performance review, The Competition is Fierce has bloody good acting.
As the sexually assertive boss lady, Norry slithers through the corporate landscape as the evil overseer – driving her weary right hand man Carlyle (the grandiloquent Andrew Wheeler), to do things to his minions he would rather not (is there no retirement option in his contract?). Norry is the first to get naked in the play's unreserved use of nudity, but with her character, you get it.
As the charming John No. 2, Marks does admirably as the conniving overdog – throwing himself into the sociopathic ruthlessness of his role. And the play's endearing pacifist, Cochrane, shows the most character development as he evolves from bookish to bravados to combat ready. But as their love interest and beleaguered office sex object, Cairns is the star – sharpening a vague script about sexual harassment to a point, and evoking the most emotion from her plight. Too bad she has to endure an attempted rape that feels randomly plucked out of a bag of plot tricks.
Jennifer Stewart's unique set staging works well, though. After sipping pre-show drinks out of coffee mugs in a staff room-themed bar, the audience makes it's way into a stark white box – a macro-cubicle if you will – while a microcosm of modular office spaces materializes via simple desks and visual projections. Carmen Alatorre's costuming – clever plays on the power suits of the future – completes the effect.
But while The Competition is Fierce could be a piercing comment on North America's glorification of capitalism and executive-class entitlement, it is instead just a fight, albeit a funny one, to make it to the end.
• The Competition is Fierce runs at the Shop Theatre until March 22. Tickets $25/$20 at ITSAZOO.org.
