In an interesting week of theatre-going it’s been fascinating to see new plays by Anthony Neilson (THE TELL-TALE HEART at the National Theatre) and by Mark Ravenhill (THE CANE, at the Royal Court) on successive nights.
David Carlyle in The Tell-Tale Heart at the National Theatre. Photo credit Manuel Harlan.
Both writers are of similar age, both made their reputation by shocking audiences in the 90s with a poetry of word and violence, both started their career at the Finborough fringe theatre and went on to enjoy long fruitful residencies at the RSC.
So now they’ve reached middle age and are firmly old guard, establishment what do they have to say? Can they still shock us? If indeed that’s still their objective.
They seem strangely in sync this week. Both have written sinister dialogue, expressed in creepy attics that provoke unease, with linguistic banalities hinting at latent cruelty, dark unspoken secrets and even psychosis beneath the mundane. Both ratchet up the tension until blood is shed. In both plays people talk, not like humans, but like people in plays. And both Neilson and Ravenhill shoot themselves in the foot by trying to force neat conclusions from their trips to their respective creepy attics.
These guys are my contemporaries, I know them both, and started out with them and I find myself disappointed that my generation have now turned inward and these days look for monsters in the attic when there are far scarier real life issues to explore in today’s political climate.
Much as I admire these two writers, I hunger to learn what they feel about our world; as Europe veers to right politically, American’s relish the cruelty, buffoonery and lack of compassion in their president and we totter on the brink of climate change devastation. I think it’s time they looked out of the dirty windows in their chambers of past horrors to comment on the monstrosities bowling down the street to blight our futures. We survived AIDS, Thatcher, Regan and a planet bristling with nuclear weapons. We must have something interesting to impart.
Society and the theatre are inclined to write off 50 something male writers, if we continue to hide away in the artificial, theatrical world of creepy attics and don’t bring our wisdom and insight to the real world, this may be justified.
Reviews have been mixed for Kit Harington and Johnny Flynn in TRUE WEST, Sam Shepard's 1983 play about two warring brothers. They’ve ranged from 4 stars to 1 so your enjoyment may be based in how big a fan you are of the two stars.