Work While They Sleep
16 May 2026
Camden People’s Theatre
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Work While They Sleep is a new Brazilian sci-fi play that recently had its world premiere at the Camden People’s Theatre. The futurist feminist play, written by Filipe Pereira and translated by Jenny Futuro, follows W., an exhausted entrepreneur who is overwhelmed with the demands of her small business on top of the housework. She finds an online course training people to work while they sleep, and gleefully creates a dream version of herself, M., who does all the work while W. sleeps. But as M. demands more and more, and W. realises she still doesn’t get to sleep, or dream, things spiral out of control.
Jenny Futuro takes on the role of narrator, not just drawing up the atmosphere and background information, but directly telling W., played beautifully by Gabi Flares, what to do, think, feel. There’s an oppressive atmosphere of stress and overwork in the air, as W. tries to balance all her tasks throughout the day. The presentation is brilliantly executed, juxtaposing the straight-faced narration with the very physical performance of W. whirling across the stage in a desperate attempt to balance her business and her household and her life.
There are such dreary parallels to our own overworked society, at the brink of burnout and with the sole focus being productivity and how to raise it. Touching on the gig economy and the aspirational presentation of entrepreneurship being the height of freedom is swiftly contrasted with the extreme demands of not having set working hours and needing to power through just to get the work done.
Under the dystopian layers that at times remind of the main theme of The Substance by presenting a split-personality style narrative in the name of improving oneself and one’s circumstances, there are stark references to today’s capitalist hell scape of seeing people only as their potential for productivity, of never being quite good enough, or fast enough, or fulfilled enough.
Work While They Sleep is a deep exploration of capitalism’s devastating impact on our society, the unpaid and unseen domestic labour women are expected to master on top of a full work day, and hustle culture’s influence in a pandemic of overworked labourers who still are never doing enough. It’s a nuanced and deeply impactful production that leaves deep impressions on its audience, timely and extremely urgent, it is important explorations of our society like this one that deserve all the stage time they can get.
