NOLA

Since December 2010, London-based company Look Left Look Right has been visiting New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico to interview those affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In this, a piece of "documentary theatre," a selection of these interviews are delivered verbatim by actors. But while the group has had success with this technique in the past, one can't help but wonder here what exactly the distancing presence of actors adds.

In a large part, the issue seems to be that the cast of four can't resist hamming up the folksy dignity of the Gulf residents, while officials and academics, by contrast, are played lazily for laughs. The voice of a BBC journalist, for instance, is camped up – a seemingly aimless pop when, in fact, his description of the humbling of the hyper-confident oilmen is fascinating. Where it works best—the moving testimony of a civil litigator whose son died in the explosion—it's because the delivery is understated and the mannerisms tightly restrained. Overall, though, one wishes the voices of the real people were allowed to ring through unmediated.

But if the theatrics are clunky, the documentary aspect of this piece is anything but. What's impressive is the care with which the team has selected participants, and the sensitivity with which they have been interviewed. In conversations with riggers, conservationists and fishing boat owners, the interviewers allow the victims of big oil's negligence to speak eloquently, digging deeply yet tactfully, all the while keeping the interviewer's voice largely hidden. NOLA is largely saved by the importance of the story it tells, rather than the manner in which it tells it.