Rob Bell’s ‘We’ll Get Back to You’ opens with Viva (Jessica Link) arriving for a job interview. This 90 minute production, brought to the Fringe by Crooked Path Theatre, an acting company from the Eastern Iowa Corridor in the United States, quickly sets up its premise: Viva is informed by Connie (Caroline Price), whose job title is comically long, that she will undergo a 360 degree interview in which every aspect of her life will be scrutinised. As staff from different departments take turns questioning her, it becomes clear that she is also, in her own way, interviewing them.

The show follows the familiar template of heartwarming transformation tales, where a free spirited outsider refuses to follow the rules yet ends up helping those around them discover new perspectives and happiness. In one example, Claude (Ron Clark), one of the company’s oldest employees, is still mourning the sudden death of his wife, who was also his colleague. Viva draws on her own experience of losing her mother to persuade him to travel the world. One by one, she inspires everyone that comes to interview her to reconsider their own lives.

The piece gestures toward satire of toxic corporate culture, but its critique falters when the blame is pinned almost entirely on the CEO. This narrow focus is reinforced by a final twist that suggests systemic corporate problems could be solved simply through better leadership. The production sidesteps deeper examination of entrenched issues such as neoliberalism, the capitalist structures shaping today’s socio-political economy, or the long term harms of an overemphasis on professionalism.

Instead, it takes the easy route, relying on sentimental yellow-tinted video montages from around the world and reducing structural critiques to individual journeys of self discovery journeys that, in this telling, are solved by travelling abroad. This framing reflects a distinctly Western centric worldview, where places like South Africa appear merely as backdrops for personal enlightenment before returning home.

Despite the skill and energy of Crooked Path Theatre’s ensemble, ‘We’ll Get Back to You’ feels content to offer comfort rather than challenge. It flirts with satire but retreats into sentimentality, replacing systemic critique with travel-brochure optimism. By the curtain call, the audience is left with the message that all corporate ills can be fixed with a change of heart and a different perspective, a fantasy as empty as it is comforting.

‘We’ll Get Back to You‘ has finished its Fringe run