A worthy insight into the lives of people who keep the world running while we sleep
Night Shift is the latest play performed by Zoo Co, a Croydon based troupe. Written by Paula B Stanic, the play takes place over a single night, focusing on a series of characters that find themselves working while the rest of the nation sleeps. The cast consists of a 9 person ensemble, with almost all characters playing multiple named roles, as well as providing support to other scenes through either adopting a background character or becoming part of the set themselves. Prop usage is at a minimum, so the whole cast are reliant on physical techniques to convey changes of scenery.
Night Shift rotates predominantly between British Sign Language, spoken English, and dialogue free physical performance. For a minority of our characters, being deaf is relevant to the story they have to tell – one character with a cochlear implant struggles to answer phones for work when their office is noisy. For others, being deaf is a character trait, a device to bring characters together. Some characters and plots do not involve hard of hearing people at all. The transitions between sign and spoken languages in the play are mostly smooth, though from a technical perspective, the screen captions sometimes felt out of sync with the interactions on stage. Scenes where characters would use both BSL and spoken English, sometimes even changing mid sentence were easy to get a bit lost in when the subtitles themselves didn’t line up perfectly – this is quite a minor nitpick though. Overall I found the mixture of language, as both a feature and a plot device, powerful and insightful, and would even go as far to say that the play is at its strongest when using its non spoken storytelling. The mime, gesture, and movement used throughout in moments free of dialogue, spoken or sign, were particularly well executed.
We’re initially introduced to our characters through a dialogue free opening montage. The cast shift around the stage beautifully using only a change of outfits, handheld lights, and each other’s limbs to give short glimpses into the night shift workers that we’re going to be introduced to;. A late night package delivery driver, an emergency services responder, a surgeon, a DJ, a street busker, petrol station employees, and more. It’s a strong opening set to a music track of tense, down tempo electronic music. We’re smoothly shown how through the dark nights, we have a whole world of people dealing with their own pressures and challenges.
From here on, we’re then re-introduced to our characters one or two at a time. A screen at the back of the stage indicates the setting in written English (‘A Hotel Bar’ for example), and the ensemble does the rest of the work to show us that the setting has changed through movement and background activity. Most characters get 3-5 scenes each, with each scene lasting around 5 minutes before the ensemble sweeps in again to take us somewhere different, at the same point in time.
Scenes will typically frame around the crossing paths of characters, either through chance encounters of strangers, or through pre-existing relationships. The plot of the play centres around how the characters weave together to help each other through their problems. These problems are typically related to the fact that these characters work at night. We explore key themes of isolation, powerlessness, and unreasonable pressure – all of which are exacerbated by the night time in some way.
In some ways though, the play falls on its own sword by trying to tell too many stories . All plays that adopt the style of having an ensemble of characters with separate plots face the same challenges. Characters need to be introduced quickly and simply. The actors and script have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get you to remember and care about their character in a short window, before the audience is taken elsewhere. The more character plots you have, the smaller share of the stage time each is given. For the majority, we do connect and find ourselves invested with these characters. All are well performed by the ensemble cast. But this play gives us at least 10 character plots to follow, which leads to some of them feeling undercooked, or even out of place. One such example is that of a fictional member of Croydon council. Our councillor is not a night worker, but is being kept up at night by the stresses and negative publicity he’s receiving in his job. This plot is also bogged down by a political narrative that not only sticks out thematically, but risks alienating audience members not familiar with the problems being faced by Croydon council.
As Night Shift concludes, some of its characters are wrapped up neatly, others not so neatly. For some of the “not wrapped-up” characters this doesn’t feel problematic. Not everything needs to be tied up with a bow. For others, I felt as though something was missing from their story, or even if I had failed to pick up on something.
The play closes with two characters hanging a poignant banner with the (paraphrased) message that sometimes the best thing we can do to support each other is simply to be present. I’ll admit this felt a little shoehorned in, as this banner was essentially found, not written, by one of our characters. But that doesn’t change that it was an excellent message to close a good play about loneliness in modern society.