The Raise

In The Raise the French author Georges Perec deploys an algorithm to demonstrate an employee’s efforts to seek an increase in salary. The plot involves the employee, his boss, and the secretary. But you won’t see these three onstage! Instead, the six characters you will engage with are; the proposition, the alternative, the positive hypothesis, the negative hypothesis, the choice, and the conclusion -- six recurring nodes of an algorithm.

The 2023 Turing Award winner has noted that “for every problem that we face and try to solve, we can’t rule out that it has an algorithm that can solve it.” That is a bit of hubris, as this algorithm turns out to reveal a Kafkaesque maze.

Perec portrays a searing vision of capitalism and the corporate world. The employee is snubbed, exploited, and deceived by his managers while he vainly tries to secure a raise.

Agit-prop, parable, fable, allegory or farce? There is a little bit of each in this play filled with humor and pathos—reminiscent of Beckett, Brecht and Lewis Carroll.

This is the North American premiere. Produced and translated by Thomas Zipp. Directed by Brian Westerley.