14.9.94
Three More Sleepless Nights
Etcetera Theatre
Before watching Fifth Column Theatre Company’s
production of one of Caryl Churchill’s short
plays, I never realised that the phrase ‘a real
nightmare’ is, in fact, an oxymoron. Perhaps my
realisation was due in part to the tone of
Churchill’s three domestic sequences, dreamlike
but firmly rooted in the grimmest reality. It was
certainly crystallised by the emotionally direct
performances of the company, appearing for the
first time in London. Each of the sleepless nights
into which the play is divided is undeniably a
nightmare, but, equally undeniably, the bad dream
will be just as real, and as present, in the
morning.
Initially there would seem to be nothing out of
the ordinary. Set in 1980 in Thatcher’s
notoriously self-centered Britain, the play opens
in Margaret and Frank’s bedroom, where they argue
over the usual marital bugbears - her nagging, his
infidelities. As the scene progresses, though, it
becomes clear that, whatever their feelings of
affection may be for each other, their feelings of
appropriation are stronger. Each regards the other
as personal property in an emotional distortion of
the Thatcherite ideal, and it is on this point,
above all others, that their relationship founders. |
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Margaret and Frank are so busy trying to possess
one another that they make it impossible for either
one of them to be totally self possessed.
Dawn, meanwhile, has become so negated by her role
as Pete’s wife that, in the second sequence, we see
her doubting her own existence. Pete, while acutely
aware that a lot is wrong, is too terrified to face
the truth, continually blotting it out - with
horrific consequences for Dawn. It is this inability
of human beings to make each other really happy, to
allow each-other the space and freedom to be what
they can and should be, that lies at the heart of
this play, and the issue reaches its apotheosis on
the third night. It is the real and inescapable
nightmare that haunts all our social inter-action,
and this production brings it, like Frankenstein’s
monster, to powerful and grisly life.
Jemma and Lisa Curry’s set is a splintered segment
of Suburbia, with tattered strips of wallpaper
interspersed with the ironic graffiti ‘Brave New
World’. All the performances are absorbing and Rob
Curry’s direction twists unerringly between each
wry witticism and the wry wince which is never far
behind. It’s a beautifully crafted examination of
the almost unbearably bleak landscape that we all
inhabit. (See Fringe)
Julia Morrow
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