The Lift - Play Reading

THE LIFT - Play Reading
Trapped in a lift in real time, two strangers bare their souls, unaware that everything is being transmitted live online.2036
Climate crisis - refugee crisis - reproductive crisis - police stateA medical building, evening. A man and a woman get into a lift on the 75th floor. By the 23rd they are trapped with no means of communication. The next ninety minutes change their lives forever.Aaron, a war journalist, has just been told he has a degenerative disorder. Maggie, in an abusive marriage, has found out her final legal round of IVF was unsuccessful. Unknown to them, their encounter is being watched via security camera by a guard downstairs, who has leaked the feed, live onto the internet.Picked up by national news and watched by their partners, by the time the lift doors open, Maggie and Aaron have lost not only their privacy but everything they hold dear.Is there any way out, other than down?A new thriller by playwright Lorien Haynes, The Lift reading is produced by Twickenham Exchange in collaboration with REFUGE UK. The reading will be followed by a Q&A with the actors, director and REFUGE.WRITER'S STATEMENT - "The Lift evolved out of an idea about loss of privacy. How incrementally our civil liberties have been eroded to a point where we are always on camera. Where no space is safe or sacred. My initial thoughts were to explore how enforced intimacy could lead two people to offer each other unconditional love and at the same time lose everything they have."