If you could relive a memory, would you? It is an intriguing thought, and one most would jump at the chance to experience, especially if the memory were of a perfect moment or a lost loved one. Would it have the same impact, though, if it were someone else’s memory? What do we gain here, and what might we lose? In Noga Flaishon’s remarkably mature work Memoriam, which considers how technology could soon be used to immerse us in other people’s recollections, it is the preservation of memories of the Holocaust, and the intimate impact of such traumatic memories, that forms the central focus of this exceptionally thought-provoking production.
Memoriam is set in the near future, where memories can be bought and sold, and subsequently experienced by anyone with a VR headset and a subscription. At first glance, Flaishon’s one-act work leans heavily on science fiction, focusing on the ethics of buying and selling memories and whether earning money for your most intimate moments is entrepreneurial or exploitative. Protagonist Rachel (Rachel Barry) is a ‘diver’ for the company Memoriam, going into an individual’s head to excavate their memory and establish whether it is fit for purchase. Yet matters soon become complicated when her employers try to convince her 92-year-old Jewish grandmother, the last remaining Holocaust survivor, to sell her haunting experiences to the service. There are fewer than 200,000 Holocaust survivors alive today, a number slowly decreasing that represents a shared memory gently fading as time passes. Yet while Flaishon’s play is clear in its reminder that such memories should be passed down, it is the method by which these should be transferred to the next generation that comes under the spotlight here.
What is immediately striking about Flaishon’s script is how worryingly authentic, and likely, the sale of memory feels. The VR headsets used to extract and consume memories are recognisable, and the commercialisation of one’s most intimate thoughts and recollections feels prescient, which Flaishon uses to critique society’s slide into instant gratification and a desire for simulation. This is enhanced by Ellie Wintour’s bleakly brilliant beige set design, nodding to the sanitisation of these memories, and the sense of human connection and empathy being lost as technology threatens to control our understanding of the past as well as the future. In this sense, while the production certainly draws heavily from science fiction tropes such as dangerous tech, the production feels real and believable, with its authenticity an ironic consequence for a play all about immersing oneself in other people’s experiences.
It is something we have probably all thought about ourselves, either wishing to go back in time to experience what something was like, or replaying a moment from our past. Yet here Flaishon makes a clear distinction between wanting to replicate history and whether we should at all. Memories here are cleaned and sanitised for public consumption, and a neat sideplot surrounding Jimena Larraguivel’s Becky, who is selling her childbirth to the company, has it returned to her minus the pain and screams in a darkly crafted sequence that carries a fierce warning.
As Rachel, Barry plays the character as initially defiant and determined, staunchly focused on the experiences her work and her company offer the world. Rachel is not completely dislikable, but Flaishon’s script is ambitious in making the lead such a headstrong individual with little leeway, especially in the way she believes digitising her grandmother’s Holocaust memories would serve a greater purpose, even if that forces her nonagenarian relative to relive them too. Smartly, Flaishon’s script chips away at some of Rachel’s stubbornness, especially when her true motives regarding generational trauma and connection are revealed, emerging so violently during a stark sequence when grandmother and granddaughter experience the same Holocaust memory. This forces Rachel into ‘pain shock’, a warped kind of PTSD that the memory consumer suffers if it all gets too real, though unlike for the memory’s originator, this PTSD is only temporary. It is an absorbing leading performance, and through Barry’s punchy, urgent delivery the piece maintains a superb momentum, which means the almost two hours, without an interval, fly by.
While Rachel behaves with volatility, it is the stoic, composed portrayal of survivor Rivka, Rachel and brother David’s Bubbee, by Beverley Klein that is utterly captivating. Klein’s depiction of Rivka is immediately disarming, with small chuckles, shuffles, and the relentless offering of cake to her grandchildren as a deflection from the horrors witnessed eight decades ago. Under Daniel Goldman’s direction, Klein’s Rivka never loses composure, even when forced to recollect her darkest and most painful moments, in an engaging, measured performance that captures the sheer, unimaginable magnitude of what Holocaust survivors and victims experienced. Indeed, it is here that Flaishon’s aims land. In a play all about consuming memory and making experiences a commodity, some experiences are either too painful or too awful to share. Edited for public consumption, the company intends to sanitise Rivka’s memories to make them ‘fit’ for the masses, yet its true authenticity, rather than its proposed sterile reproduction, comes in the play’s gorgeously powerful final moments as Rivka tells her story in her own words.
There is something delightfully cynical in Flaishon’s writing, too, about society’s emerging reliance on the instant and on simulation. It is a play that deals with heavy, emotive issues and recollections, yet Flaishon’s script is impressively funny, too. Klein’s comic timing is dry and impeccable, while the scathing wit of Flaishon’s writing comes in the depiction of slimy tech boss Chris (Ben Wiggins), whose ever-smiling presence belies his true, exploitative intentions. It is through Chris’s character that Flaishon skewers society’s desire to consume history so sharply, but in a palatable sense, and this allows the piece’s messages about memory, recollection, and connection to breathe organically as a trio of ideas that impact through intimacy rather than exposure. The thought of stepping into the experiences of a Holocaust survivor first-hand, feeling the horror that Rachel describes so bleakly after just one exposure, is a horrifying prospect. Yet it is also something that, in an ever-changing digital age, does not feel too far away.
Amid the ethical conversations about technology, the piece finds time to look at the implications for the family unit, too. Rachel’s pushing of her grandmother puts her at odds with her doting brother David (Ashley Margolis), fuelled not just by David’s horror at his sister’s aims, but also by Rachel’s jealousy regarding a revelation from her grandmother to her brother that leaves her isolated. It is within the family dynamic, though, that Flaishon weaves in the importance of a shared family history, especially in Jewish families, using the setting of Passover as a clever moment for all three characters to reflect on the experiences, whether lived or shared, that bind them.
It feels inevitable that, with the growth of VR and AI, in our lifetime we will be able to experience the past in a way that feels first-hand, even if the tech to extract memories is not quite there yet. Yet while the thought of being able to time-travel in a sense is completely enticing, Memoriam does a terrific job of reminding us that while some memories must be preserved, they should not be relived either.
Captivating and courageous, the great irony of Flaishon’s superb work is that it will linger in the memory long after watching it. It is a play that should be experienced far and wide.
