Beyond Caring

by Alexander Zeldin

Overview

I'm a hard worker. I don't push him to the . . . You know I don't go out for breaks when I'm not supposed to. I don't stay in the loo when I'm not supposed to. If I was that kind of person I could have him done for discrimination . . . I just get on with things you know.

Four people arrive to work the night shift in a meat factory. They meet for the first time. They are employed as cleaners by a temp agency. They are all on zero-hours contracts.

Every shift, they clean. Every four hours, they take a break. They drink tea or coffee together. They read magazines. They chat. As it gets light, they go home or to another job. The cycle goes on. And on. Strangers. Until something stirs, until isolated people get too close to one another, too fast.

Alexander Zeldin's brutally honest and darkly humorous play, written through devising with the ensemble of the premiere production, exposes stories of an invisible class. It received its world premiere at The Yard on 1 July 2014 and transferred to the National Theatre's Temporary Theatre on 28 April 2015.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474255479
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/19/2015
Series:	Modern Plays
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Alexander Zeldin has, since 2011, formed an ensemble of actors in the UK with the aim of collaborating together long term in projects where he writes. Their projects include Doing the Idiots (National Theatre Studio 2012 - a response to Lars Von Trier's film The Idiots), Shemehe and Beyond Caring (Yard Theatre, 2013). His work has been recognised by a nomination to the Rolex Mentor Protege Award in 2012, for the leading young artistic voices of the future.

Editorial Reviews

Totally compelling . . . This understated 90 minutes is quietly devastating . . . As time moves, slowly, the whole thing gradually becomes more and more heightened, emotionally and theatrically. The beauty of the piece . . . is that it eschews sob stories in favour of genuine tragedy. Just as these people keep themselves pretty much to themselves until the final, desperate moments, so the play always slyly shows and never tells. There are no big speeches. There is much awkward silence. People reveal themselves in small gestures . . . There are gusts of sadness; moments of pure desolation. But mostly there is work, with people struggling to survive: to the end of the shift, the end of the day, to the end of life itself.” —Guardian

“The piece has drive and purpose and a social conscience” —The Stage

“Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point.” —Time Out

“It's an elegy to an invisible class . . . This is character-driven theatre at its purest . . . It's a play about what unremitting poverty does to the soul, where poverty is not starvation, but life without dignity.” —Spectator

From the Publisher

It's an elegy to an invisible class . . . This is character-driven theatre at its purest . . . It's a play about what unremitting poverty does to the soul, where poverty is not starvation, but life without dignity.

Spectator

Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point.

Time Out

The piece has drive and purpose and a social conscience

The Stage

Totally compelling . . . This understated 90 minutes is quietly devastating . . . As time moves, slowly, the whole thing gradually becomes more and more heightened, emotionally and theatrically. The beauty of the piece . . . is that it eschews sob stories in favour of genuine tragedy. Just as these people keep themselves pretty much to themselves until the final, desperate moments, so the play always slyly shows and never tells. There are no big speeches. There is much awkward silence. People reveal themselves in small gestures . . . There are gusts of sadness; moments of pure desolation. But mostly there is work, with people struggling to survive: to the end of the shift, the end of the day, to the end of life itself.

Guardian