Since I Suppose

Chicago 2014

Participating in a One Step performance feels a bit like walking down the street when you are in the midst of some massive life change: a horrible loss, maybe, or a terror of something ahead. It seems inexplicable that everyone around you merely is going about their prosaic regular business. The experience feels a bit like you are inside some giant movie, where only you know it is a movie.
…you will be in awe of the brilliance of the delivery of the technology it takes to make this singular show happen. But One Step also understands that theater needs people, and it is the mysterious strangers you encounter — those who plead with you, scare you, arouse you — that will stay with you until the next time this amazing Melbourne company comes back to town.

Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

This is both an indirect reinterpretation of Measure for Measure and a piece that acknowledges it’s a play about a play, an invitation to think about Measure for Measure and the ways in which its subjects play out in the here and now — power and corruption, capital punishment, the selling of sex. You never know quite where you’re going next, and in some particularly intense passages you may not know quite where you are — leading up to what you could call a literal coup de théâtre in the equivalent to Measure’s Act V. Since I Suppose is a powerfully, immeasurably inventive trip.
★★★★★

Kris Vire, Time Out, Chicago

Since I Suppose is a masterpeice in experiential story telling, taking individuals on a multimedia journey through downtown Chicago that brilliantly uses technology to mine the huge potential of theater in the digital age. I wish I could delve deeper into specific events of Since I Suppose – some of which rank at the top of my list of incredible theater moments – but the less you know about the experience, the more magical it becomes. There’s a genuine thrill to this production. It’s the kind of milestone every theater lover should get the chance to witness at least once.
★★★★ (4 out of 4 stars)

Oliver Sava, Chicago Theater Beat

Melbourne 2014

Since I Suppose in Melbourne’s CBD is the best production of its kind. It’s insanely well choreographed with its mysterious appearances and disappearances, its spy thriller “dead drops” and sealed envelopes with directions and instructions. There are scenes and set pieces in this theatrical extravaganza that will remain with me for the rest of my sentient life.

Chris Boyd, The Australian

…there is an immense pleasure in the twists, turns and surprises of the experience. It draws out themes of power, religion and pleasure through a number of visceral, intimate and confronting experiences…to provide audiences with an emotional insight into the characters of the play. Since I Suppose achieves an excellent balance in the way the audience is given just enough time to think, for imagination to take hold, before being swept up by the next surprise. How apt that a show which deserves to be one of the most talked about of this year’s Melbourne Festival is one that you’re not supposed to talk about.

Ashher Warren, The Conversation

Somehow One Step (create) a genuine sense of psychic peril. It’s unsettling in a way very little of this kind of theatre is. Here the metaphor of the story and the careful construction of the experience made something else happen: a confrontation, perhaps, with a genuine sense of individual powerlessness in a city of lies and corruption. In any case, I tottered out of the final destination and had to have a half hour recovery session to get my mental bearings again..

Alison Croggon, ABC Arts