Under the Radar - "Call Cutta in a Box"

Photo/Rimini Protokoll

Call Cutta in a Box isn't a play, it's a theatrical reimagining of a pen pal program. Over the course of a focused forty-five minutes, you will go from the vague anonymity of a phone call with a Callcenter Service Representitive from Descon Limited to a more intimate conversation and teleconference. The structure is clearly scripted--the representitive refers to "scenes" and manipulates electronics (like the computer) from afar--but the content is unique.

It's a revealing experience--not so much an outsourcing of theater as an insourcing of cultural expectations. Regardless of how well they've faked an accent in an attempt to sell you something, chances are you've dismissively dealt with a call-center representative before (perhaps even one from Descon). Call Cutta in a Box reminds us of the humanity on the other side of that line, and in the process, reminds us of our own humanity, which is a fairly ambitious goal for a project like this. Everybody has a name, a face, and a story, and it's high time we started taking advantage of technological advances to hear more of them.