The Suicide at The Lyttleton

As far as I am concerned, the best thing about The Suicide is the brilliant sporadic drumming by Sam Jones.  This is a pity, because, on paper this update of Nikolai Erdman’s subversive satire promises much.  Originally written in 1928, The Suicide was banned the Soviet authorities in 1932.  Whilst Suhayla El-Bushra’s version loosely follows the plot of the original, it can hardly be termed subversive or particularly funny.

The play centres around Sam Desai (Javone Prince) an unemployed young man who has lost his benefits and become totally disillusioned by his lot.  Dependent on the earnings of his wife and over-sexed mother-in-law with whom he lives, Sam finally decides that life is all too much and perhaps he should end it all.  Unfortunately for him, his initial tentative foray into committing suicide is filmed on a young man’s i-phone and immediately turns viral.  Oh the way our flawed modern lives are ruled by social media and that there always seems to be someone out to exploit you at every turn!  At least this is what Sam discovers when, amongst others, a creepy local politician, so called friend and trendy café owner, are desperate for him to carry out his suicide plan in order to further their own ends.

Highlighting the falseness of much of our society, Nadia Fall’s production tries way too hard to be funny, clever and shocking.  As a result it is only amusing in places and in others resembles a runaway horse.  Act Two in particular is a rather shambolic, hammy affair.

Only two actors really deliver a truthful interpretation of their characters; Paul Kaye as the hip film maker and Ashley McGuire’s droll mother-in-law.  At one point she is brave enough to be viewed in all her naked glory ….. the point being?  To be honest I really don’t know apart from using it as a cheap joke.

Actually I don’t know the point of any of it.  Hopefully someone else will come along, use the concept of the original Suicide, ditch the “bells and whistles” and end up with a proper satirical indictment of what is wrong with our modern society.  Until then the cast of this version are suffering an uphill struggle.

Elegy at The Donmar

Here’s a question.  If the person you have loved and lived with for twenty years has developed dementia and there is an operation that can cure the disease but will mean that those married years will be erased from the patient’s memory, is the procedure worth doing?

This is the major problem facing the two older women in Nick Payne’s new play, Elegy, set in the near future and currently running at The Donmar Warehouse.  After much soul searching, teachers, Carrie (Barbara Flynn) and Lorna (Zoe Wannamaker) decide that Lorna should go ahead with the operation and the play opens just after she has been discharged from hospital.  The problem is that the reality of Lorna now not having any recollection of her life with Carrie is more than her partner can bear. 

We learn about the operation and the decision behind it thanks to Nick Payne’s clever use of reverse chronology.  Luckily we’re not bombarded with too much scientific jargon, just enough information about the removal of the diseased parts of Lorna’s brain and their replacement with microchip implants from the doctor (Nina Sosanya). Instead the play leans more towards the ethical dilemma that faces the two women and draws us into their love affair, ensuring that we care deeply about their fate.

Of course this wouldn’t be possible without excellent performances from the three actors.  When we first meet Zoe Wannamaker’s Lorna she adeptly convinces that she really has no idea who this Carrie person is.  She is cold and distant, “I don’t see anything when I look at you”, and it’s only when we travel back in time that we realise her love for Carrie totally mirrored that of her partner.  Her frustration and anger that she has been dealt this dud hand is painful to watch and the irony isn’t lost on us that she was the one initially less inclined to go through with the procedure.

Barbara Flynn’s devastation at losing the love of the love of her life is understated and all the more effecting for that.  The utter fruitlessness of trying to get through to the woman she has lost is never overblown, just as the love she has for this woman is never underestimated.  Nina Sosanya’s matter of fact Miriam brings a less emotional character into the mix, although we are under no doubt that this doctor’s compassionate nature isn’t far below the surface.

Tom Scutt’s design places a symbolic dead tree with splayed branches centre stage and Josie Rourke sparse direction ensures Elegy never succumbs to melodrama. 

This is a very short play, at just over one hour’s duration, but it certainly packs a punch!

Bug at Found 111

Those of us who have found Found 111 aren’t just smug but thrilled, for this (one can only call it space) is, at the moment, home to some of the most exciting and intimate theatre London has to offer.  Reached by climbing three flights of very unprepossessing stairs, Found III comprises a bar, sitting area and rather claustrophobic scruffy room where the audience are within touching distance of the actors.  And it is only those actors at the height of their game who can survive such close scrutiny.  Luckily the four cast members of Tracy Lett’s gory thriller, come black comedy, come psychological drama are just that and some!

The bugs of the title aren’t the surveillance camera type that I initially thought, but nasty creepy crawlies that Peter, and eventually Agnes, believe are invading his body.  Peter, an impressively paranoid James Norton has been brought to Agnes’s home (well motel room) by her “out there” friend Ronnie.  Initially quietly polite, Peter tentatively falls for the drug induced twitchy Agnes, who is petrified of being visited by her ex con, ex husband, Jerry, a nasty piece of work and no mistake.  Like Peter, Agnes is a troubled soul and the two of them succumb to love and the belief that the doctors who treated him following his time serving as a soldier in the Gulf War have somehow turned him into a human guinea pig.  Convinced that his body has been taken over by aphids, Peter goes to great lengths to try and remove them.  This removal, especially when centering on him using a pair of pliers on a tooth, is grueling in the extreme, whilst the sores, which eventually cover his body ensure the audience’s flesh crawls as much as the imaginary bugs.

In the wrong hands the couple’s descent into increasing bouts of paranoia could be farcical, but Norton and Kate Fleetwood as Agnes convey their desperation with a searing honesty.  They are both totally plausible.  Norton is a master at portraying hidden depths in his characters and his creepy earnestness as Peter is mirrored by Fleetwood’s intensity as Agnes slowly unravels.  The whole premise of the plot might be unbelievable but the audience is totally gripped. 

Daisy Lewis is a more than plausible Ronnie, whilst Jerry Goss, who plays Agnes’s brutal husband, never fails to exert a definite unease whenever he arrives on the scene.  Add Simon Evans’s direction to the mix and the room at the top of the stairs ensures an unnerving and thrilling evening.  It’s not a matter of watching and listening to Peter and Agnes unravel on stage from the comfort of our seats in the auditorium, we’re doing so in the motel room with them.