The brave new world that British author Ella Road tells about in her debut play "The Laboratory Assistant" could soon become reality.

At least as far as the medical-technical requirements are concerned, it is not difficult to categorize people according to diseases, life expectancy and IQ with a rating between one and ten.

Based on the fate of the uncritical laboratory assistant Bea (Rosalie Maes), the highly entertaining, even exciting piece shows how the merciless rating dominates people's lives.

Genetic testing is the key to everything in this world, and Bea finds faking blood tests a lucrative sideline.

Neither her critical friend Char (Lis Dostert), with a low life expectancy and a bad rating of 2.2, nor her supposedly gifted friend Aaron (Daniel Mutlu) suspect that the growing standard of living is based on dirty business.

Dystopia can be entertaining

Bea never questions the system as such, and at the latest when she married Aaron and is pregnant by him, it becomes apparent in terrible brutality how much Bea has internalized the inhuman norms of this society that has fallen for the optimization mania.

Will your baby be a "low-rater" or a "high-rater"?

And does she even want to have a child with a rating below five?

Distressing questions of this kind are dealt with in Fabio Godinho's Mainz production, a co-production with the Théàtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, sometimes in a casual conversational tone, sometimes in a heated relationship dispute.

During the whole two hours one senses the inevitable bitter point of the piece, which manages to shake up the audience without pointing the index finger too embarrassingly, but with small, almost foreseeable shocks.

The many euphemistic neologisms used above all in the video feeds as news, advertising or vlogs are particularly revealing: forced sterilization is praised as a service to the community, and a citizens' initiative fights for the killing of suboptimal babies, euphemistically referred to as "legalizing postnatal abortion".

Heroic janitor with black humor

Fabio Godinho's no-frills staging in the U17 venue nevertheless succeeds in making Bea's decisions and feelings understandable.

She is no better and no worse than the society in which she lives.

Although Aaron also doubts the evaluation of people by a simple number, all he wants is to get through, and Char's commitment is also mainly due to her low life expectancy.

Only the supporting character David (Vincent Doddema), who works as a janitor, shows true heroism, although he could occupy a top position in society with his rating.

The cranky dropout, who always makes people laugh with his black humor, sees through the system, but has recognized that resistance is futile.

The Laborantin Next performance on November 11th at 7.30 p.m. in the U17, Staatstheater Mainz.