Sent From My iPhone

Edinburgh Fringe – The Space

Brooklyn Bottling Company’s Sent From My iPhone is a unique workplace drama, focusing on exploring the cut-throat environment of corporate America. It’s unclear if they’re blowing the lid off of anything in particular; maybe it’s the scarcity of jobs and intense competition that perpetuates the cycle of morally grey decision-making and substance abuse (as is illustrated in this theater piece), but even after seeing this show, who could say. 

Written by Nadia Fortini and directed by Catrin Ody, this particular play is set over the course of an all-nighter, as interns Lola (Natasha Vincent), Penelope (Maya Moravec) and Chad (Anzi DeBennedetto) clean out the physical office space for a position that they’re competing for.

“needs to stop defusing tension and conflict as soon as it starts to build”

The relationships between these characters are very quickly and deeply established, and over the course of the show, they constantly shift and develo to the point where the subtext of interactions between characters pretty much screams at us. There are quite lengthy periods where we are lulled into a kind of rhythm by the repetitive tasks that the cast carry out. Initially, it suits the show well in creating a kind of realism in terms of establishing setting and context within a limited space and time, but these moments perhaps go on for longer than necessary and quickly move from novel to just mind-numbing.

In a self-contained setting like this, tension, conflict and information is currency to hold our attention. What Sent From My iPhone fails to do is build enough tension for the information that is released to have any significant impact on us; we’re not anticipating anything and any effect that a new reveal might have is slightly dulled by the constant conflict between characters, something we just become desensitised to.  As well as the lack of set-up done beforehand – whilst the relationships between characters are deep the characters certainty are not – the ‘twists’ don’t really do much to break up the monotony. 

Sent From My iPhone has a premise with a lot of potential which quickly unravels in the execution of it. In order for this show to hit its twists, it needs to stop defusing tension and conflict as soon as it starts to build. 

By Katerina Partolina Schwartz

Photo credit: Catrin Ody