Suppose an antisemitic conspiracy theorist cured cancer. That’s the kernel of American writer Aaron Loeb’s zesty serio-comedy that probes the ethical boundaries of venture capital investment in health, and what happens when technology outstrips the moral human frameworks meant to contain it. The way incidents and issues are loaded into Chelsea Walker’s urgent 90-minute production is schematic and slightly absurd. On the other hand, it’s thrilling to see a play that engages in big, contemporary themes, and that really goes for it.
It begins with a confused, older, Asian-American woman being soothed by her smart fridge. Then suddenly we’re in the offices of the Silicon Valley investment fund run by Paul Montrose (Lloyd Owen) and his protégé May (Millicent Wong), a fifth generation Chinese American. Paul is a smart-aleck, trainer-wearing, smoothie-sucking veteran of the first tech boom led by Apple’s “Woz and Jobs” and he still purportedly believes he can make money *and* do good in the world. Especially when May brings him scientist Willa (Letty Thomas), whose new diagnostic tools promise to revolutionise not just healthcare, but illness itself.
