Before You Got Me, I never appreciated how unnerving it is to walk onto a completely silent set.
Normally, a production company likes to serenade their audience into the theatre to some sort of vaguely thematically-related soundtrack. But Silent Tape Productions makes the ambitious decision to totally annihilate sound from You Got Me. From the very start, an uncomfortable nothingness lingers in the air: onstage we see just our two main characters, sitting pensively in a minimalistic set, and an unnerving woman in black watching in the corner. And, of course, that silence.
Oliver Martin’s original and experimental writing explores two strangers, Alex (played by Charlie Heath) and Rivers (Cohen Rowland) who are inexplicably trapped in a room together, unable to escape. The play is deliberately opaque, as the characters fruitlessly attempt to parse the situation: why are they here? For what purpose? For whose purpose?
It is You Got Me’s exploration of that last question that intentionally leaves the audience – or perhaps “voyeurs” is the more appropriate word here – feeling deeply uncomfortable for choosing to watch the play in the first instance. There is, of course, the aforementioned “Figure” clad in black (performed, on opening night, by Maddy Howarth), who functions as a sort of audience surrogate. Howarth’s performance contributed to the atmosphere of unease, silently watching the duo’s struggles from afar – but, at the same time, remaining close enough to the action for her presence to be sharply palpable to our characters. She is inscrutable, eluding their attempts to understand her; at one point, she even comically eludes their efforts to capture her. But as the characters agonise over why the “Figure” is watching them, the play routinely holds a mirror to its literal audience.
The characters wonder for what purpose they are being watched by such “losers,” with little else to do in their lives (fair point, I guess) – is it a science experiment, or a sadistic sport? I struggle, as I write this review. It feels like every evaluative judgement I make upon You Got Me will, in turn, be judged by someone. (Perhaps Alex or River? Perhaps the play itself?). But this returns to that sense of unease that a play like this wants its viewers to feel; in that discomfort, we begin to pry into bigger questions. Why do we watch plays? What are we doing here? What do we see, when the play holds the mirror up to us? Do we like what we see?
You Got Me resembles a classic Beckettian tragicomedy. In a Waiting for Godot-esque fashion, the characters suffer a severe case of deja vu over the course of their confinement, finding themselves repeating the same conversations, routines, and games. But what I found interesting was how Martin explores the theme of degeneration over the course of this repetitive cycle; from the first time that Rowland’s River splutters the word “flucking,” the language of our central duo starts to deteriorate, teetering on the brink of sense-making (though this hasn’t been the only experiment with language in theatre this term…). This is matched by a gradual paring-down of an already sparse set: as time goes on, the Figure strips away the chairs, scattered books, and roses, only to leave behind – nothing.
This nothingness becomes a source of existential dread for our two main characters. But in the face of the “nothing,” the dynamic between Alex and River was a “something” – something, that is, to continually capture the audience’s intrigue. Martin is quick to draw attention to the ages of his characters; Alex announces himself as a current university student, while River is a recent-ish graduate. These subtle age differences breed subtly different worldviews, and these nuances are drawn out from our lead actors’ performances: Heath manifests as a rather optimistic, even naive presence in a repressive situation, a stark point of contrast to the more cynical (and shouty) Rowland. Rowland’s incredulity provided a recurring source of comedy throughout the night, as, for instance, when he gets increasingly impatient with Heath’s arbitrary reasoning for sending sourdough-lovers to Heaven, and cargo pants-wearers to Hell.
But in the face of River’s frustration, Heath’s performance of the younger Alex attempts to provide a source of optimism – at times naive, but always charming – while attempting to navigate a bleak situation. Alex represents a yearning for connection; from the very start of the play, he appeals to the mistrusting River that “all we have is each other”. For a play in which nothingness tends to be an overwhelming note, there is something genuinely touching about Heath’s attempts to forge a relationship with River. I do notice that the proceeds from ticket sales go to Alzheimer’s Society, and to an extent, the theme of attempted connection in the face of deteriorating language and memory can poignantly speak to a very real and lived experience. Without spoiling too much, it is for this reason that I find the ending of the play somewhat tragic.
If you have a penchant for experimental drama, I can wholeheartedly recommend Martin’s original play. In a relatively short amount of time, Silent Tape Productions creates quite a surreal viewing experience – at times funny, at times disturbing, but constantly intriguing – that attempts to push the limits of drama, character, and memory itself.
Silence may be the beginning note of You Got Me. But by its ending, the play has much to say about how we forge connection in the face of the ongoing decline towards nothingness.
[You Got Me, staged by Silent Tape Productions, is running at the Burton Taylor Studio, 10th-14th February, 2026.]