Opolis review – generation-gap drama plunges deep into virtual world

Alphabetti theatre, Newcastle
The possibility of trading bad memories for good drives tension in this disconcerting play by Ali Pritchard

When they talk about the pre-crisis times in Ali Pritchard's dystopian two-hander, there is no shortage of options for which crisis they mean. It could be Covid-19, global heating or warring superpowers. Whichever it is, capitalism has ploughed voraciously on. Where once the industrial machine was content to profit from our labour, now it is after our very souls.

The play starts, though, with a familiar generational schism. Two women, Julie and Isabel, are squaring up to each other in a claustrophobic space delineated by a simple scaffolding box. Julie is irritated by the time the younger woman spends online. Isabel is outraged to be instructed by someone responsible - by dint of her age - for the decay that has made real life so intolerable. It is less about lacking empathy than mutual incomprehension.

Opolis is at Alphabetti theatre, Newcastle, until 7 May.