It is a simple story about a trio of 50-something fellas who were a band when they were college age, returning to the scene of their exploits in Ibiza 30 years later.
Neil D’Souza not only wrote the play but also plays one of the lead parts, very convincingly – actually all of the actors do so: Catrin Aaron, Kerry Bennett, Peter Bramhill and James Hillier being the other four. Alice Hamilton does a grand job from the director’s chair.
The play is a comedy but it has a thoughtful and edgy twist to it too. In particular, the second half starts off full of fun and laughs, but soon “bloke meets woke” in a rather shocking way, changing the tone and bringing the story home in a nuanced way.
We really like comedies that have enough going on that we still have stuff to talk about over a meal or two afterwards. This is one of those.
Wilderness is about a couple who split up, determined to make it amicable for the sake of their eight-year-old son. But of course it doesn’t work out like that.
Janie and I found this play a painfully visceral piece. Neither Janie nor I have direct experience of this scenario, but that didn’t lessen the power of the drama for us.
Anna Ledwich, who has directed so many of the excellent things we’ve seen at the Hampstead, has again done brilliant work with a new writer, Kellie Smith and a superb cast: Richard Frame, Natalie Klamar, Allison Mckenzie, Finlay Robertson.
An excellent, sparse set by Lucy Sierra added to the sense of cold and decay that pervaded the piece.
One element of the writing that I think deserves praise was how very irritating the main characters were, yet Kellie Smith managed to maintain a sense of goodness and vulnerability, such that we as audience members cared about them and cared what happened to them. One of the ways she did that was to prevent us from ever seeing the child at the centre of the tussle; of course we couldn’t but care deeply for the ever-absent child and the impact the play’s events must have been having on him.
One other event will stick long in our memories. Next to us sat two slightly unusual women; one young, one quite a bit older. They clearly weren’t together but struck up a chatting friendship. At the end of the interval, the younger woman came back with some wine and cake. She plonked the wine down in front of her (we were in the front row) and commenced with munching the cake, taking and expressing great joy in her victuals.
Janie and I both, silently, thought that wine cup was an accident waiting to happen, positioned, as it was, in the path of any late-comer who might be moving swiftly to their seat at the end of the interval. Within a minute, indeed such a latecomer arrived and indeed the cup and the wine were put asunder. To make matters worse, in her dismay and forward lunge in a vain attempt to rescue her wine, the young woman also dropped the remains of her cake.
“Oh no”, said the young woman, “that was entirely my own fault”.
In some ways, that silly incident felt like a comedic metaphor for the serious subject matter of the play. Meanwhile, I have been trying to work out if I can find yet sillier places to leave victuals and crockery lying around the house in order to maximise the chance that they get spilt and/or broken. Thought experiment only, you understand.
But back to this truly excellent play/production, Wilderness. It really is well worth seeing if you like your drama intense, up close and personal.
Plenty of seats still available at the time of writing; Janie and I would suggest that you book early to avoid disappointment. The production runs to 27 April 2019 and I hope it gets a deserved transfer after that.
