Beyond Caring

About

A few people arrive to work the night shift in a meat factory. They meet for the first time. They are employed as cleaners, by a temp agency. They are all on zero-hours contracts. Every shift, they clean. Every four hours, they take a break. They drink tea or coffee together. They read magazines. They chat. As it gets light, they go home, or to another job. The cycle goes on. And on. Strangers. Until something stirs, until isolated people get too close to one another, too fast.

Through investigation, first-hand experience and with the involvement of people working on zero-hours contracts, Alexander Zeldin’s brutally honest and darkly humorous play, written through devising with the company, exposes stories of an invisible class.

Cast

Lamya Regragui, Juliette Speck, Charline Paul, Patrick d’Assumçao, Nabil Berrehil, Bilal Slimani

Creatives

Director: Alexander Zeldin
Associate director: Kenza Berrada
Set and costume design: Natasha Jenkins
Costumes assistant: Gaïssiry Sall
Lighting design: Marc Williams
Sound design: Josh Grigg
Choreography: Marcin Rudy
Technical Director: Léo Garnier
Set construction: Théâtre National de Strasbourg
Head of Production: Marko Rankov
Production, Administration & Tour Management: Emilie Oudet (Cyclorama)
Production: Compagnie A Zeldin
Co-producers: Théâtre National de Strasbourg; Fondazione Teatro Metastasio, Prato; Théâtre des Célestins; Le Volcan - Scène Nationale du Havre

With the artistic participation of the Jeune théâtre national

Cyclorama is responsible for the administration of the Compagnie A Zeldin and the executive production of its shows in France.

Alexander Zeldin is an associate artist of the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.

The Compagnie A Zeldin is subsidised by the Ministère de la Culture / Direction régionale des affaires culturelles Ile de France.

Alexander Zeldin is a writer and director for theatre and film. His play Beyond Caring had its premiere at the Yard Theatre in 2014 and was later transferred to the National Theatre in 2015. That year, he received the Quercus Trust Award and became Associate Director at Birmingham Rep. His acclaimed play Love opened at the National Theatre in 2016, was later shown at Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe and adapted for the BBC. In 2017 he was named Artist in Residence at the NT, and in 2018 received the Arts Foundation Fellowship for Literature. Faith, Hope and Charity, the final part of The Inequalities trilogy, premiered at the NT in 2019. Zeldin is Associate Director at the National Theatre, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe and CDN Normandie-Rouen. In 2020, he founded A Zeldin Company to tour and produce his work, including Une mort dans la famille (2022) and The Confessions (2023).