‘Contractions’ at The Wanstead Curtain.
A Darkly Comic Descent into Corporate Madness…
At some point in our working lives, many of us have probably wondered: Is my manager even human? Sometimes, it really does feel like they’re there to push us to the brink, just to see what they can get away with.
Mike Bartlett’s dark comedy ‘Contractions’, first published in 2008, taps directly into that anxiety. Described as a 'comedy about the boundaries between work and play’ it satirises the rise of absurd, invasive office culture. This idea stems from the USA, but is now frighteningly familiar on this side of the Atlantic too. The story follows Emma, an employee being slowly, insidiously consumed by the demands of her job. Her private life is pried into, scrutinised, and ultimately sacrificed, all in the name of ‘company policy’. You will flinch as the lines between her professional and personal life begin to blur, then vanish altogether.
In its run at The Wanstead Curtain, Contractions is given new life by Far Between Theatre. Maira Vandivar is outstanding as Emma, who is vulnerable, yet steely in the face of increasing absurdity. Opposite her is David Martinez as ‘The Manager’, a nameless figure (and that absence says a lot), calmly delivering corporate jargon while slowly stripping Emma of her autonomy. Though we might like to think we’re immune to the US’s toxic ‘grind’ culture, Contractions makes clear we’re not. This isn’t a problem for the US, it’s been translated right here, in our offices, co-working spaces, Slack channels, and out-of-hours emails. As the play grimly reiterates, ‘good’ jobs are hard to come by, and many of us are surprised by how much we’ll tolerate just to keep one. Before TV explored similar themes in popular shows like ‘Severance’, Bartlett was already asking: how far are we willing to go to be 'good employees’? The answer disturbingly seems to be: too far.
At first, we laugh at the surreal, overreaching HR policies. The idea that you could be interrogated about your romantic and sexual life by a manager seems ridiculous. Until it doesn’t. The Manager’s repeated question ‘Have you got anything to tell me?’ shifts from mildly irritating to Orwellian. Words like ‘perpetrated’ are used in relation to Emma’s relationship choices. It’s both hilarious and deeply disturbing - as we think, soon this could be real life. Maira captures Emma’s descent brilliantly, walking the fine line between resistance and submission. She has also doubled here as sound designer, using office noise to mark scene changes - which become more and more warped and distorted as the play progresses, cleverly and subtly building tension and echoing Emma’s unraveling sense of reality.
The set design is stark but effective: The Manager sits at one end, Emma at the other, isolated and interrogated. The power dynamic is clear from the start, he controls when she arrives, when she leaves, and ultimately, who she becomes. By the end, the audience is left stunned. David manages a masterful transition from passive-aggressive corporate mouthpiece to a genuinely sinister figure, whose own humanity we actually start to question. Meanwhile, Maira shows us the emotional cost of survival in a system that refuses to acknowledge her humanity.
The real question at the heart of Contractions is how much of ourselves are we willing to give up for a job? This becomes more disturbing as the play goes on. Emma cannot simply quit. She needs the money. She needs to survive. And so, she complies. But at what cost? By the final scenes, the divide between Emma’s life and work is indistinguishable. She’s no longer a person, but a puppet, strung up by performance reviews and policies. Her humanity is expendable. The company comes first.
This production is a sharp, timely, and chilling reflection of modern working life. Smartly directed, superbly acted, and deeply unsettling. You’ll laugh. Then squirm. Then leave the theatre feeling deeply, uncomfortably pessimistic about the state of our working culture.
Contractions is on at The Wanstead Curtain as part of The Wanstead Fringe Festival 2025