This play feels very of the moment. If you’re into your HBO contemporary TV dramas like the Sopranos, Entourage, The Wire - anything with American men yelling f*ck at each other and using ugly threats of violence to express their affection - this is the play for you.It's the story of how an ex con and recovering addict jeopardises love, family and friendship thanks to the self-serving manipulation of his addiction sponsor.
It’s a fascinating exploration of how the language and culture of self-help, the twelve step programme, mindfulness and healthy living can be just as brutal and cruel as the destructive behaviour it claims to cure.
It's pretty much 1 hour 45 minutes (no interval) of people yelling and swearing in a series of interiors, although there's a great bromantic punch up. There are only five characters – our main man, his junkie girl friend, his camp cousin and his screwed up AA councillor and his despairing wife.
I’ve no idea why the National Theatre bosses decided to put this intimate play on in such a huge theatre. I suspect it would be far more powerful in a smaller venue. In fact it might as well be on TV or film, something designer Robert Jones seems to acknowledge by framing the big stage with a neon square. Out of the darkness within the square the various bits of scenery swoop in from different angles as a series of fire escapes twist like the mechanics of a clock work toy, or the Game of Thrones title sequence (More HBO).
What justifies its place on a major stage rather than on TV or in a fringe theatre where it would work just as well are a number of long speeches that are almost operatic in their intensity. These call for virtuoso performances and this cast really deliver.
Ricardo Chavira, who played Carlos in TV’s Desperate Housewives, is terrific in the lead role, like a Puerto Rican pit-bull that might attack you or role over and want its tummy tickled. There’s a fantastic star turn by Yul Vazquez recreating his Tony nominated performance as Cousin Julio. Immaculately groomed like a Soprano mobster he exudes a quiet menace whilst his feminine side is never far from the surface. Nathalie Armin is one of two English actors in the cast and plays a randy desperate housewife so well you’d never guess she was a Londoner. The cast's completed by the equally assured Flor De Liz Perez as a fiery druggy girlfriend and Alec Newman as an angst ridden, predator of an AA sponsor.
This could be a surprise hit for the National Theatre. It certainly grips and entertains as well as the starry revival of American Buffalo currently at the Wyndhams theatre in the West End.
Fans of grandstanding American acting and twelve Step cynics shouldn’t miss it.
You've only got until June 27th to see the vibrant and colourful BEYOND BOLLYWOOD before it finishes its run at the London Palladium. Do get along if fancy an intoxicating evening of terrific Indian dance.