Fragen Network’s Abhorrent Little Scrotum is a surreal, darkly comic cyber-thriller that slips between physical theatre, psychological depth, and the destabilising hum of digital disorientation. It’s a tight, intense piece that asks what happens when technology not only rewrites reality, but rewires the self.
We meet Jack, a hacker in freefall after a personal collapse, who dives into “The Experience”—a shifting, hallucinatory mindscape—to save her friend Dari (Angel Lopez-Silva) from a mental virus. The rescue mission is part friendship, part obsession. Dari’s grip on reality is slipping, but so is Jack’s. As the hunt deepens, what’s real, what’s virtual, and what’s imagined blur until they’re indistinguishable. The piece thrives on this instability, using movement, sound, and fractured dialogue to immerse the audience in a space where betrayal feels inevitable and identity is never fixed. Some of the physicality is deliberately unsettling—stabbing, strangulation, and sudden bursts of violence punctuate the action, reinforcing the sense of threat and instability.
The tone is part neo-noir cyberpunk fever dream, part intimate character study. Fragen Network’s trademark high-energy movement and razor wit—seen in Blush of Dogs and Hell Yes I’m Tough Enough—is sharpened here into something more personal. It’s a complex, demanding show that requires the audience to think hard about what it’s depicting. At times it’s more thought-provoking than entertaining, and its ambiguity will frustrate some while fascinating others. The performers are an ensemble cast, the role of Dari is performed by Anastasiya Zinovieva. ,Angel Lopez-Silva plays Brittl Hardware, who is working with Jack (whose alter-ego Herbert is helping him get into the Experience, played by Zaza Bagley. They deliver layered, committed performances that ground the surreal visuals and shifting realities in raw, emotional truth. This is theatre that keeps you guessing—sometimes uncomfortably so—long after you’ve left the theatre
Reviewed by Pat Harrington
More information and tickets here
Read our interview with the Director, Roland Reynolds here
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