Beyond Caring: (Modern Plays)

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.

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.

Review :
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. The piece has drive and purpose and a social conscience Beyond Caring seethes. It brings your blood to boiling point. 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. Alexander Zeldin's devised drama gives an unforgettable taste of life at the bottom of the employment pile. . . . it has a rare quality of gripping authenticity. this desolate, quietly intense devised drama gets under your skin and into your bones. . . . it's a ringing condemnation of an economic practice that puts profit before people and turns the basic business of earning a living into a barely sustainable, soul-destroying hell. Unforgettable. Zeldin boldly sticks to unostentatious naturalism and draws the audience into this world. . . . this raw, unsentimental piece has immense cumulative power and quietly conveys just what it means to live with such a crippling lack of security. very funny: understated but wincingly convincing in the manner of the best TV mockumentaries. . . . his writing has its own effective rhythm and, underneath it all, real compassion. "Beyond Caring" is beyond praise. A reminder that dramas about those living on or below the breadline in Britain are shamefully few and far between.