‘Facehook’ explores addiction to online social networking

The Elephant in the Room theater is presenting its new play discussing social networking at Penghao Theater. Photo provided by Elephant in the Room

By Chu Meng

A Beijing experimental theater group of expats and locals last week presented Facehook, a play that explores the damaging effects of online social networking, at Penghao Theater.

“How many times a day do people log on to Facebook? Why do people have to log on to that website before getting down to their work?” Fabrizio Massini, the Italian director of Elephant in the Room theater group, said. “At the end of the day, what is Facebook? A convenient means of communication? An amusing time-killer? Or is there something more behind its glossy pop-ups?”

Facehook, the group’s first work to be presented in both English and Chinese, scrutinizes the lives of social networking fans, revealing a disturbing world of deception and deviousness in their interpersonal dealings.

The script was written by Norwegian Oda Fiskum and combines her original work with excerpts from a Chinese theatrical poem titled “File Zero,” about government surveillance of citizens in the years shortly after the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The poem was written by Yu Jian, who was part of the Chinese experimental theater scene from the late-’80s to the mid-’90s.

Fiskum, who along with Massini is a visiting scholar at the Central Academy of Drama, admits to once being a “Facebook addict” and compares the obsession with being caged.

“‘File Zero’ elicits the feeling of being in a cage,” she said, “and I started thinking about what a contemporary cage would be like – and Facebook just snapped into my mind immediately.”

“We want people to start thinking and questioning what these networking communities are for, how they are changing the way we think and behave,” she said, also citing Facebook’s Chinese counterparts Kaixin and Renren.

Elephant in the Room, established in 2009, mainly consists of students and professionals from China and Europe who, through their plays, examine present-day social communication trends among the young.

The group’s mission is reflected in its name: “‘An elephant in the room’ means there is something in the room that is not being talked about,” Massini said. “For example, maybe you have a big family secret that causes everyone to be tense around each other. No one talks about it but everyone is thinking about it. Well, that secret is the elephant in the room.”

“We design our plays for those who enjoy wise comedies. We want our plays to be a medium to reflect something that is ignored by everyone else but that happens every day,” Massini said, adding jokingly, “If you’re going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you.”