Elizabeth Holmes claims her biotechnology will revolutionize medicine – and people believe her. A single drop of blood, she claims, can be used for up to 800 blood tests. She rockets to fame and fortune, becoming the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire and inviting comparisons with geniuses from Steve Jobs to Beethoven. The problem: her technology doesn’t work. As she defrauds investors of hundreds of millions of dollars and uses her disastrous technology to test real patients, does she think she's doing anything wrong?
Optimistic is a devised, solo play, based on verbatim interviews, trial exhibits, text messages, and Holmes' personal notes. It asks questions about the gap between appearance and reality as it delves into the mind of the fraudster once considered guaranteed to change the world. Adopting Holmes’ distinctive mannerisms and famously affected voice, Deller brings to life verbatim material previously unavailable to creators of existing works on Holmes. This allows true insight in answering the crucial question: what was Holmes thinking?
Tobi King Bakare and this theatre deserve a shout-out for such a young, diverse audience. There is so much talk about audiences being full of over 60s and why, why can’t theatres get the crowds in to reflect society in general? Well, I’m happy to say that on a rainy Thursday evening, the theatre was completely full.
Caiti Grove on Before I Go in CPT's Spring 2023 season London Theatre Reviews
