I Love You, Bro | THAT Production Company

Theatres are often used as spaces to explore the dark and deceitful aspects of the human psyche. I Love You, Bro by Adam J.A. Cass and presented by THAT Production Company is the true story of a 14 year old boy ‘John’, who spends his time logged in to an online chat room as an alternate personality ‘Alba J’. He comes across MarkyMark, a young man in the chat room who takes a liking to Alba J, and begins to entrap MarkyMark in a web of lies, inventing alternate personality after personality, even killing some of his characters off, until MarkyMark and John himself are both lost to the narrative. It is perfect fodder for a one act play. It’s difficult to believe it’s all true.

Cass’ play is a 90 minute monologue performed by one actor with no intermission; no easy feat. It requires precision in performance and endless energy with multiple characters having rapid-fire conversations with each other. It’s brilliant writing. 

The production is double cast, and I saw Jordan Stott perform on Friday 17 March. Quick, now’s your chance to experience an excellent young actor in a small black box theatre before he hits the big time and is too famous for all of us. In all seriousness, Stott was flying - and what I mean by that is his performance leaps forward with presence and electricity, never leaving the audience behind. This performer knows how to work a crowd, and this piece was perfect for him. He plays with the audience - toys with us - and I feel he will explore the intricacies of this dance with each performance. 

I felt his performance came down to land once or twice in the ninety minutes, and I am excited to see this performer continue to hone his craft, as he is still grappling with some (few) moments of clarity and projection. Not helping this however was the fact that the theatre was a non-traditional space shrouded with black curtain ensuring no acoustics whatsoever. I have no doubt that Stott will only fly higher over the course of the season. 

Director Timothy Wynn takes a minimalist approach to this work. That is not to say that there aren’t design elements; they are just used sparingly. It is the moments where Wynn and Lighting and Vision Designer Nathaniel Knight take liberty to experiment which bring us into the chaotic digital world of John. Projection is used on the upstage wall and on a thin strip of scrim that covers some of one side of the stage. Nearing the end of the play is an overwhelming crescendo: Stott performs multiple characters dimly lit in front of a live camera. Duplicates of his mostly silhouetted portrait are projected overlapping across the set. To me it evokes the idea of online anonymity, and the ever growing chat room of personalities John is losing himself to at this moment. 

There are a few other gripping moments like this, but I kept wanting more to give greater momentum over the 90 minutes. I mention momentum, as I felt it was lost a few times when the same elements were conveyed the same way over and over. One example: an intense droning sound effect kept coming back throughout to show. Some might argue it was a motif, however I felt overused without gaining nuance or points of difference and I began to find it a bit of a cliche. 

I will also note the intense droning sound effect and I didn’t get off to a good start. It was on loop pre-show filling the small foyer. I went outside to escape it. Perhaps this was the intention? It did extend the world of the play into the foyer sonically, however I am not sure how necessary it was to the dramatic meaning of the piece as the audience was absorbed from the opening lines, and I believe this would have been achieved in the absence of the pre-show drone. Am I droning on about the drone? Sorry, I’ll stop. 

A few small notes on the topic of being distracted by things. A minimalist approach means that it is easy to be brought out of the world of the play. There were a few late design cues here and there during scene changes, and unfortunately the text messages that were projected onto the scrim in an early scene were unreadable. All the words were spoken so nothing was missed, but the element was distracting without adding meaning.

THAT Production Company and the team have created a show that’s worth seeing, and have clearly allowed the phenomenal text and actor Jordan Stott to shine. That being said, the production does feel quite safe. We followed the story, and the performance is one to see. At the end of the show however it left me feeling like there were missed opportunities for experimentation and exploration in the overall vision for the work. 

‘I Love You, Bro’ plays until 25 March 2023 at the FIRE STATION 101 ,101 Limestone Street, Ipswich.