We take our seats in the theatre and there on stage, behind a table with his laptop, is Brian Lobel. Above and behind him is a projection screen. Large white seconds count down one minute. Three years ago, during 50 maniacal hours spanned over five days, he played a brutal game of Facebook friendship maintenance, voted on by a judgement panel of strangers who had one minute to decide which of his 1,300 Facebook friends to sever for good or to honour. Then the deed was done! (Brian had previously informed, by email, his friends about this impending purge!).
The stage show Purge is a distillation of these fifty hours of performance and 800 ‘friend’ email responses. Brian reads to us a selection of responses. Some are amused, or intrigued, some plead not to be deleted, whilst some responses are right tetchy about being put to judgement by a panel, and 64 delete him, pre-emptively!
We, in the audience, get the chance to get in the groove with what severing electronic friendships feels and felt like. Voting cards are distributed amongst us, and as we’re read these responses we have chance ourselves to vote ‘keep’ or ‘delete’. Brian asks us questions about who would we choose to delete from our own Facebook accounts. The atmosphere is chatty, friendly, informal. People reply ‘friends’ parents’ or ‘friends’ pets!’ and shout out ‘one night stands’ and ‘old work acquaintances.’ We are given the opportunity! A man from the audience comes up on stage and live, in front of us, deletes one of his own Facebook ‘friends’. Someone he really didn’t want to be associated with.
Purge has excellent pace and clear sections, laced through with a sub plot or inner story about the death of Grant, who was an incredible writer and Brian’s first love (and the subject of installation pieces Mourning Glory Parts 1 and 3, which also played at the festival). He tells us in one-minute timed snippets about their friendship, and about their relationship via Friendster, a now defunct service, with all content lost. The show plays around with increasingly relevant questions about where online friendship stops and real friendships begin. Does the distinction between them matter?
Purge was enjoyable through all its twists and turns, Brian’s warm, informal delivery and the audience involvement created a rousing event, yet I felt indifferent most of the time and not particularly moved. The moment I most enjoyed was in the section called Dwelling where Brian invited us to close our eyes and focus our attention on the one person we could talk about for more than one minute, perhaps for an hour, all day and forever. A most gorgeous richness grew within the room in that minute: a consensus of love without the word love being used. This action certainly made me question the nature of friendship and what we value in particular friendships. And unlike the online world, for me it’s quality rather than quantity that counts.