Shocking, as in, it left us feeling really quite shaken and discombobulated.
In a way, this was immersive theatre. The Almeida was reconfigured, such that the audience was divided into sections in sort-of booths, from which you could see some of the action live and the rest on screens. You have to wear headphones to hear everything, which increases the confusion between the real and the virtual.
The conceit of the play is that some people who cannot afford good housing choose to live in an attractive-looking home, but the price is that they are spied upon by sadistic paying customers who are allowed to shoot stun darts at the residents “for fun”.
It is a horrible thought. The story plays out in interesting ways, not all predictable. The experience is disconcerting, because, as an audience member, you feel somewhat complicit in the voyeurism and sadism playing out before your eyes and on the screen. Occasionally some of the action takes place within your booth itself.
It made us think about the housing crisis, the ways that computer games and so-called reality television are encroaching on people’s lives and more besides.
Janie and I both tend to like Simon Stephens plays, so there was little debate about booking an early sighting of this one at the Royal Court.
We enjoyed our evening, but neither of us could honestly say that this was one of Simon Stephen’s best or most memorable plays.
The play is about a rock star at the end of a long tour. The issues covered, while done well, seemed superficial compared with most of Simon Stephens’s plays. The dialogue glistened, but then what do you expect?
We thought this play/production was wonderful and we both remember this particular evening at the Almeida extremely well.
I had been especially keen to book this production, as I had read the play in the late 1980s, found it very interesting and wondered whether I would ever get to see it performed.
Janie and I attended a preview, as oft we do. Wallace Shawn was there and we chatted with him for quite some while. He came across as being exactly the sort of slightly-awkward, self-effacing type that he depicted in the film My Dinner With Andre, which is a great favourite of ours. A couple of times I said to Wallace, “I’m sure you need to speak with some other people”, to allow him to move on without discomfort, but he made it quite clear that he was happy chatting with us and continued to do so.
We talked about his other plays, many of which I had read and several of which Janie and I had seen together. We also chatted about the Almeida production of Aunt Dan & Lemon. He told us how thrilled he was that Miranda Richardson was playing Aunt Dan, as he was a huge fan of hers. I remember reflecting afterwards, with Janie, that Wallace Shawn seemed more star struck about Miranda Richardson than we were star struck by chatting with him.
The production was truly excellent. I had wondered, when I read the play, how it could possibly be staged well. Director/designer Tom Cairns and the production team had a myriad of clever answers, not least the hugely effective but not overpowering use of video projections on a screen.
Glenne Headly was superb as Lemon, as was Miranda Richardson as Aunt Dan. An excellent supporting cast including Corey Johnson and Kerry Shale.
Our friend Michael Billington loved this play/production:
It’s a shame that the Guardian mis-labelled the photo as Natasha Richardson (daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, no relation to Miranda). I wonder whether Wallace Shawn laughed or cried at that mistake back then?
Charles Spencer in The Telegraph considered the piece to be pernicious and wrong-headed, which is an interesting counter-argument to those coming at the piece from a more liberal perspective:
Thinking about the play some 35 years after reading it and 25 years after seeing it, I am struck by the thought that the play would, today, seem implausible, because an academic with Aunt Dan’s views would be lucky to survive even one semester as an Oxford don. Mind you, Wallace Shawn probably wouldn’t last much longer in an elevated academic institution either. Having thought provoked in this manner is not for wimps.
One of the very best and most memorable evenings we have spent at the theatre.
