Writer’s Note: Eloise Snape, THE ELEVATOR
After reading Careless People: A Story Of Where I Used To Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams, a particular moment stood out to me. Sarah (Facebook’s director of global public policy at the time) was furiously typing a work memo on her laptop, in between contractions, while in labour with her first child. I found this particularly fascinating. The deeply human act of giving birth could not be more at odds with a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on big tech. And as we sacrifice humans and human instinct for the sake of efficiency and new technologies, are we actually forgetting ourselves, and how to be good people?
The three brilliant and hilarious women in THE ELEVATOR, all for various reasons, have to behave ‘badly.’ Not only are they competing in a corporate landscape that has been set up for them to fail, but they have all made questionable sacrifices as they deal with a huge moral dilemma. By placing them in a closed space and with this story unfolding in real time, the claustrophobia that comes with a foreboding sense of guilt and working under a glass ceiling is intensified.
There’s only so much humans can control, before it backfires on us. Tech giants love to ‘move fast and break things.’ But are they actually breaking? At the end of the day, we will age and our post-partum bodies will leak, and those are deeply human and beautiful things. And perhaps we could try stopping halfway up the never-ending mountain, take a breath and acknowledge the view from there. It might be a kinder and more generous place.
Eloise Snape
Don’t miss THE ELEVATOR, playing 18 Sep – 18 Oct.