The Week on Stage, from That Is Not Who I Am to Sun & Sea
A guide to the week’s theatre
London’s theatres are trying to lure us into a false sense of security this week… but nothing is as it seems.
At the Royal Court, the mysteriously authored That Is Not Who I Am turned out not to be by a debut playwright called Dave Davidson after all. The clue was in the title, we suppose. Over in Deptford, LIFT Festival kicked off with acclaimed international hit Sun & Sea. It appeared to be a nice day out at the beach. It wasn’t.
Join us next week: we’ll have the verdict on Mad House, starring David Harbour, and Favour, the latest show from theatre company Clean Break.
That Is Not Who I Am – Royal Court ★★★★☆
In That Is Not Who I Am, the latest Jerwood Theatre Downstairs show at the Royal Court, a young couple bond over their fondness for shadowy corners of the internet; they fall in love over a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Since it was first announced as the debut work of unknown playwright Dave Davidson, who had “worked in the security industry for 38 years”, people online have clamoured to find out his true identity. On finding out that the culprit was in fact the award-winning Lucy Kirkwood, people on the internet responded as though something had been personally taken from them.
Kirkwood’s pseudonym and the play’s fake title – it’s really called Rapture – cleverly illuminates that this is a production about suspicion, misinformation and how alternate realities get constructed online. We’re told (falsely, of course) that they were measures put in place to protect Kirkwood’s safety: she’s been researching what happened to Noah and Celeste Quilter, a young anti-establishment couple, and the Home Office has been trying to censor her. Noah and Celeste meet on a blind date for a newspaper column and quickly discover they are kindred spirits, bursting – literally – through the scenery as they jump into a life together.
It’s 20 minutes too long, perhaps, and towards the end the tone tips towards melodrama. But otherwise, this is undoubtedly a majorly significant piece of writing. In exploring the way that rampant internet conspiracy theory-ism has disrupted our logical thought processes, Kirkwood is entering urgent territory. Because this isn’t just about the malleable nature of the truth online, but who is allowed to ask questions. The working-class Quilters are pulverised by the cost of living crisis, but despite their understandable distrust of the government, their rejection of corporations is easy to mock, isolating them further. “You think I’m mentally ill because I wanna ask questions?” Noah says at one point. This is a strange political mystery that’s exhilarating to watch, but full of things that are frightening to contemplate. Jessie Thompson
Sun & Sea – The Albany ★★★★☆
A confession: I found myself slightly embarrassed when I told people I was going to see a “climate change opera”. I must have sounded like a right sucker for punishment. But the off-putting description, which has stuck to this acclaimed Lithuanian show, isn’t quite right. Actually, it’s a piece of disconcerting performance art. With some singing. Sun & Sea won the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale and had audiences queuing around the block. Now, following a European tour, it reaches the UK as the highlight of this year’s LIFT Festival, a biannual celebration of international performance companies.
It’s simple, really. Standing on a balcony, we look down at a beach scene, as though peering into a vivarium. Deptford’s Albany theatre has been covered with sand, strewn with beach towels, bikes, flip flops and lunchboxes. A woman walks her dog. (A real life dog!) Two friends play badminton. People crack the spines of paperbacks, play cards, scroll through their phones, apply sunscreen to one another. Everyone is just trying to relax. People sing strange hymns to the sea; a burnt-out businessman chants “exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion…” There’s a ripple of doom under everything, about what it costs the world for these holidaymakers to make it here. And even worse: how much longer a place like this will even exist.
The score throbs with a synthy, electro indie-ish beat. Halfway through, it started to have a soporific effect on me. The sing-song melodies, the glare of the lights, the hypnotic quality of watching people lie around – it was all making my eyes feel heavy. It’s how this unusual, gentle but deadly show delivers its killer blow – to let you doze off while the world is on fire. See it if you dare. JT
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