Out of Joint, Bush Theatre and Exeter Northcott Theatre Production of Ciphers by Dawn King, Saturday 18th January 2014

In “Ciphers” we follow two stories simultaneously. The first is the story of Justine, a languages expert newly recruited to a British intelligence agency. The second is the story of Kerry, Justine’s elder sister who is trying to unravel the mystery of Justine’s life after her suspicious death. As the name suggests this play revolves around encrypted messages. There are those Justine tries to decipher in her job and the way she communicates with her lover so his wife doesn’t find out.

Misdirection is a key theme in the play with each actor playing two roles. Justine and Kerry are played skillfully by Grainne Keenan who managed to elicit empathy for both characters. The change of clothes which accompanied the change in character was perhaps too subtle for some of the audience members (judging by the discussions I overheard in the interval). However, I thought each character was well defined by the actors, each with their own mannerisms, way of speaking and moving.

The staging of the play was very clever and effective. Large off-white screens were the backdrop and an otherwise empty stage contained either a versatile table (which could be a desk or a painter’s easel) or a platform. Scene changes were fast. At the beginning they were accomplished by one of the screens being passed across the front of the stage and one scene being replaced by another behind it. As the play went on the scene changes became less precise with the actors having to switch between characters almost in front of the audience. I felt this was adding to the confusion as the characters and the audience tried to establish truth.

However, there is more to this play than espionage, either professional or otherwise. One of the most moving scenes in this production is a conversation between Kerry and her father (played very truthfully by Bruce Alexander) about Justine’s death. Kerry can’t accept the official line that her sister killed herself because she wants to believe Justine had value, that her death and life wasn’t pointless. For her father, Justine was always of value regardless of what she did or didn’t do. Indeed the title has another meaning, “of no value” and this is the motivation for all of Justine’s actions. She becomes a spy because she wants to be someone important and isn’t that a feeling we can all empathise with?