Writer and Director: Sofya Krasnova
Philosophy and anarchy meet in Sofya Krasnova’s When You Are a Tick, a 55-minute play running for just two performances at The Hope Theatre presented by Fair Love Collective. Exploring the consequences of believing too closely in one person and criminals who describe themselves as “free artists,” Krasnova’s play feels like a work in progress that hasn’t quite resolved the creation of independent characters on a developmental trajectory and the need to drive the plot forward with often surreal action or musical moments. The central premise that some people think themselves both above the general populace and worthy of inflicting punishments on them is promising but needs a stronger grounding in the play’s purpose.
A “relationship anarchist,” an “animal,” a “philosopher”, and a character named “huma” cross paths in the flat the male characters share, a gang of high-minded petty criminals who discover a great work of philosophy in a briefcase they have stolen. Taken with the concept of “Umwelt,” meaning each individual’s own perception of reality, the gang take it upon themselves to shift the umwelt of themselves and others, trying to tip the city into a new way of being.
This almost eugenics-like philosophy that small groups have the right to control the lives of others has its most obvious association in Patrick Hamilton’s play Rope (later filmed by Alfred Hitchcock) and the recent related musical Thrill Me by Stephen Dolginoff which features two young students who try to commit the perfect murder based on a philosophy that their social superiority gives them the right to take a less worthy life. Krasnova’s play follows similar lines, and while it enjoys dramatising the application of the umwelt concept, When You Are a Tick doesn’t fully explore the moral implications of the group setting themselves up as dispensers of justice.
Part of that is weakness in the characterisation that offers too little distinction between the male characters, other than animal (played by Ethan Roberts), who obsessively attempts to convince Hannah Harris’ relationship anarchist that she wants more than sex from him (she doesn’t). Who any of these people are, why they choose to so fervently believe in a book they find by accident and how their cause escalates from minor theft to attempting to bring the city to its knees is often muddled, the choice of staging devices and surreal tangents getting in the way of the point.
As director Krasnova adds much business with curtains that have to be regularly rearranged to show a variety of images, wrapped around actors and rotated as part of laboured scene changes. Some parts of the show indicate that television interviews are taking place with completely separate people telling stories about relationship break-ups or a suicide that prompted fatherhood while wearing faceless masks – although these sections are not always attentive to the audience on two sides of the stage, and it’s not always easy to understand how these segments hang together in the production choices the company has made.
There are some interesting ideas in When You Are a Tick about the accumulation of damage and whether those affected can effectively pay back society by inflicting suffering on others, but this needs to sit in a much clearer moral framework about the challenges of modern society, what goodness really looks like and justifying, as these characters believe, that their point of view is the only one worth seeing.
Runs until 29 July 2026
