Seeing Double: Figures

Some theatrical concepts are difficult to explain because they are daring and unorthodox; others because they are, well, a bit daft. The conceit behind Greenlight Theatre’s new production Seeing Double: Figures—and its sister play Seeing Double: Vision—is a mixture of the inspired and absurd. The two ensemble plays take place simultaneously with the same subject material and actors, linked by a two-way video that flickers into life at crucial moments in the action.

Seeing Double takes place on the set of a doomed contemporary version of Macbeth: in Figures, we watch the production team’s farcical attempts to hold the show together after the original director is replaced by South American ‘genius’ Julio Buenaventura.

The conceit is that Buenaventura has barred all the production staff from rehearsals, necessitating the producers to resort to CCTV to spy on the wayward genius and his troupe. If this all sounds a little confusing on paper, in practice it is quite straightforward and it's not long before the energetic cast is careering at speed between the Pleasance Hut and the Baby Grand (where Vision takes place).

Figures is a none-too-subtle pastiche of pretentious thespians: nobody blinks an eyelid when Buenaventura requests latex, black dildos and a baby covered in swastikas for his Macbeth. Instead the vapid PR woman suggests renaming the show "Macsex."

The content is less innovative than the concept but it is all delivered with such high spirits and infectious energy that it impossible not to warm to Figures, even as it becomes increasingly madcap and chaotic. A triumph for style with a soupcon of substance.