A Machine They're Secretly Building

Andrew Westerside, Proto-Type Theater

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786821119
• eBook ISBN: 9781786821126
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

' I want you to know what's happening…' From what might be a news desk, an office, a bedroom, a bunker under a mountain or a theatre, two people – reporters, senators, freedom fighters, or just… well… concerned citizens like you – think about what it is to speak up, speak out, blow the whistle and lift the veil. A Machine They're Secretly Building charts a course from the Top Secret secrets of WWI intelligence (via the moon, 1972's Chess World Championships, a disco in Oklahoma and the cafeteria at CERN) through to 9/11, the erosion of privacy, Edward Snowden and the terror of a future that might already be upon us. It is about how we got to the point where our governments are spying on us and how that's changing who we are.

Characters

Two performers, A and B.

Roles are not gender-specific.

In this version of the script, A and B are female.

Gendered pronouns may be altered accordingly.

A third letter, S, refers to text

appearing on a projection screen.

Setting

The piece is set in the theatre it is being performed in.

It might also resemble a bunker, a hideout,

a press conference, an interview room,

a holding cell or a meeting.

Time

Now.

(Downstage-left, just off centre-line, a table with two chairs positioned behind. On the table: a desk microphone, two copies of the script, a carafe of water and two glasses, a retractable pointer, two small piles of A5 paper, and two pencils. To the immediate stage-left of table, a four-drawer filing cabinet, preferably time-worn, its drawers facing stage-right. Downstage-right, just off centre-line, a projection screen. All text marked ‘S’ appears here, as well as additional video material selected at the discretion of the director. Upstage-centre, a video camera and tripod facing stage-left. The camera should be visible between the table and the screen. A live feed sends the camera image to the projection screen.

A is sitting on the chair stage-left. B stands in front of the camera. They are both wearing pink balaclavas. The camera is focussed on B’s face, which is positioned on the stage-right half of the frame. S text in this opening section appears in the other half of the frame.)

SOUND: A high pitched tone, fluctuating. Like static, or interference, but cleaner. Like ringing in your ears.

S:	Dear friend,
S:	I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded
S:	It frightens me. Keeps me awake at night.
S:	But I think that’s the road we’re on.
S:	I don’t think anyone meant it to be this way
S:	I think it happened by accident
S:	My government, your government, wants us to trade away our privacy, our freedom, for safety
S:	You are, on average, caught on CCTV 70 times, every day.
S:	In the UK alone, there are somewhere between 4.2 and 5.9 million CCTV cameras.
S:	Watching
S:	Keeping you safe
S:	But your safety isn’t free. Your freedom, isn’t free.
S:	You have to open your arms, your lives, to systems of surveillance so pervasive and invasive that slowly, without noticing, they change you.
S:	The way you act
S:	The way you think
S:	You become compliant
S:	You have nothing to hide
S:	Even if you’re doing nothing wrong, you’re being watched, and recorded
S:	…just in case.
S:	I don’t want to trade privacy for security
S:	I don’t want to live in a technological police state
S:	I don’t want to spend my whole life believing there’s monsters under the bed
S:	But I don’t think it was supposed to be this way
S:	I think it happened by accident, slowly, without anyone really stopping to notice.
S:	And now I’m worried that we’ve almost gone too far
S:	That soon, we won’t be able to turn the machine off
S:	And it’ll be like this
S:	Forever.
S:	I can’t in good c...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Cast
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Characters