Internet wormholes are dangerous things. Fall into one and you face an unknown outcome. You could lose days to Wikipedia’s “personal life” section. You could form a parasocial relationship with that woman you’ve never met who always posts pictures of her nice house. You could develop anti-vaxxer tendencies. In That Is Not Who I Am, the latest Jerwood Theatre Downstairs show at the Royal Court, a young couple bond over their fondness for shadowy corners of the internet; they fall in love over a 9/11 conspiracy theory.
Fittingly, the play has become an internet wormhole in itself. Since it was first announced as the debut work of unknown playwright Dave Davidson, who had “worked in the security industry for 38 years”, people online have clamoured to find out his true identity. On finding out that the culprit was in fact the award-winning Lucy Kirkwood, people on the internet responded as though something had been personally taken from them. Because that’s the way people mainly react on the internet now. The whole thing has been like a piece of durational performance art; I suspect Kirkwood has us exactly where she wants us.
