Dolphins And Sharks (12-30 Sept)

Dolphins And Sharks – a play about office politics, racism, equality and more.

‘’I actively avoid office politics by hating everybody equally.’ This often quoted quip sums up the sentiments of many who have to traverse the minefield that is the workplace every day of their working lives.

In life, politics is inevitable, be it in office, family or among friends. This UK premier of the insightful play by American playwright James Anthony Tyler tackles the complexities of office politics, racial tension, and pay inequalities head on whilst offering hope and solutions for a better way forward.

Four close friends Isabel, Yusuf, Danilo and Xiomara work in a copy shop in downtown Harlem. However, when a rare chance for promotion arises, their friendship is put to the test in surprising and unexpected ways. Loyalties are soon tested, power games, petty jealousies, personal interests and differing views on race, equality etc. begin to surface and threaten their hard won harmony.

Amongst other issues, the play deals with the lengths some people will go, and who there are prepared to tread on, to get ahead in the corporate world even at the expense of friendships, family and community loyalties.

As a previous reviewer put it ‘the overarching theme of the play is that that people who unite to confront a common foe stand a better chance than people who turn against one another’.

As Amenze, one of the play’s protagonists succinctly put it “Dolphins swim in groups to avoid shark attacks.”

Dolphins and Sharks won the 2015 Fire This Time Festival, was developed through staged readings and workshop performances as part of Labyrinth’s 2015 Up Next and 2016 Barn Reading Series and recently enjoyed a successful run at Labyrinth Theater.

Director Lydia Parker is Artistic Director of Over Here Theatre Company which produced ObamAmerica, a festival of new American writing at Theatre503 in 2014 and Our American Cousin at the Finborough Theatre in 2015.

Dolphins and Sharks, 12-30 Sept, 7.30pm £10-£16  Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, SW10 9ED Box Office 0844 847 1652 Book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk