Kontakt at the Old REP

It's one thing to break the fourth wall, but quite another to dismantle it brick by brick and leave it in smouldering piles of rubble on the stage.

That's what Birmingham REP's Youth Theatre (the Young REP – see what they did there?) have done with their latest piece of work performed at the Old REP in Easter week. It's called Kontakt and claims to be an 'interactional performance piece', whatever one of those is. Certainly, there is a strong interactive element to the performance, and it's the sort of thing that will be different for each audience member depending on which cast members come over for a chat.

It's that 'chat' thing that's at the heart of Kontakt; the audience are – after some serious attempts at intimidation – led to a chair under a light bulb, with a table and second chair which is eventually filled by a cast member. Then they chat to you for a bit, until someone does a bit of a speech over a microphone, and the cast rotate in a return to that intimidating opening. They repeat this until each audience member – at tables arranged across the stage – has spoken to a handful of young people.

Apparently, the idea is to find out about differences between adults and young people (not 'children', notice), but what comes across most is how chatty and affable they all are. They're also disgustingly polite about offering out tea and putting up with troublesome audience members (in my defence, they started talking to me about one of the most over-rated books on the planet).

Those tables the audience sit at are on the stage itself, and space is limited – only twenty tickets per performance. That's not the only thing with a limit on it, as the set is minimalist to the extreme, containing as it does just the tables, chairs and light bulbs. There are some odd projections on the back wall occasionally, sometimes asking question: sometimes making philosophical statements. If it feels like there's a slight European whiff in the air, it's because this is inspired by the work of German conceptual artist Hannah Herzig, who specialises in these one-to-one theatre experiences (I hesitate to call it a 'play' or even 'performance', being as it's largely just people chatting socially to each other). A youth theatre in Wales (Sherman Cymru YT) has been similarly inspired, and their Kontakt plays in June in Wales.

It's a tribute to the cast's openness and the supportive atmosphere they create that I was able and willing to talk to them, considering how bad I am at conversation. I don't know about the differences between adults and young people, but Kontakt certainly manages to show young people in a better light than the media has recently. If only they were this charming all the time.