REVIEW: DARE YOU SAY PLEASE at King’s Head Theatre 16 Jan – 4 Feb 2023

‘A revelation in the play’s third act sheds some light … but arrives too late to save the otherwise slack storytelling’ ★★

In Seattle in the 1960s, use of an early dialysis machine was so prohibitively expensive that a group of lay-people were elected to choose, by committee, whom of the 60 patients in the surrounding area would be given access to one of three available machines. The committee understood that patients who were not chosen, would certainly die. To inform their decision, the committee had access to patient information. There were measurable, financial considerations to be made – which deaths would cause the greatest hardship on those dependants left behind etc.? But the committee also made decisions on the intangible, the question of moral character within the value system available to them at the time. Today, with all of the advantages of modern science, the diabolical handling of the NHS in this country has resulted in a strict triage system that can only provide help to a proportion of those that need it. Every day, underpaid healthcare providers are forced to make decisions that will result in preventable death.

In essence, the question at the heart of Aimee Verani’s new play ‘Dare You Say Please’, is not without precedent and is not, or does not have to be, an idle thought experiment. In the piece, pairs of 25-year-old citizens are selected (we don’t know how) and given 60 minutes to decide which of the two of them deserves most to live (we don’t know why). At the end of the allotted time, one of the pair will be murdered by the state – we are given to believe that this will not be an easy death, though again, the reason for such barbarism is unclear. There is even the suggestion that the entire process might be used as a form of entertainment for a secretive watching echelon, Hunger-Games style.

For a play like this to be successful, we don’t need to know why this society has taken such measures. (Though the promotional material assures us that it is to manage an overpopulated society, I struggled to find this reflected in the script). Part of the challenge of dystopian fiction is the art of introducing us quickly and clearly to a world and its rules. Provided we receive enough of the right information, the audience can often fill in the blanks to appreciate the human story at the centre of any drama, however unlikely. Unfortunately, ‘Dare You Say Please’ does not offer enough information for the audience to form a clear sense of stakes, whilst simultaneously offering inconsistent, half-formed references to disparate aspects of the system, which serve only to detract from the drama taking place. A revelation in the play’s third act sheds some light on some of the underhanded machinations of this world but arrives too late to save the otherwise slack storytelling.

Further to this, the characters at the heart of the drama, Oscar (Leon Finnan) and Maria (Nancy Farino) are unfortunately under-written, which compromises the emotional heft of the discussion. Oscar is particularly, wildly unlikeable, constantly challenging and bating Maria, whilst refusing to engage with the task at hand. Maria, who makes an early, meek attempt to establish some semblance of boundaries, often serves as a sounding board to Oscar’s elaborate rants. That said, both Farino and Finnan throw themselves bodily into their roles, eking moments of pathos in the unspoken exchange.  

In this play’s favour are some stylish directorial decisions from Alexzandra Sarmiento. The small space is used well and the bleak, inhospitable environment is clearly evoked by Yimei Zhao’s slick, minimal set design.

‘Dare You Say Please’, Aimee Varani, King’s Head Theatre, 16 Jan – 4 Feb, Dare You Say Please | What's On | King's Head Theatre (kingsheadtheatre.com)

Reviewer Natalie MacKinnon

Natalie is a writer and playwright from Edinburgh. She is a graduate of the Lir Academy for Dramatic Arts in Dublin and the Traverse Young Writers group in Edinburgh. Her writing has been performed on stage in the UK and Ireland and has been adapted for radio by the BBC.