You enter the Royal Court for their latest production, PITY, Rory Mullarkey's tedious muddle of a play, in a crass production directed by Sam Pritchard, at the rear of the stage.A little brass band is playing and there’s a chance to buy an ice cream for 20p and take part in a raffle. It all feels the epitome of Englishness.
Events begin with a character known as “Person” deciding to spend the day in a non-specific, British town square. The director invites us to sneer at the people there by having the actors portray them with funny walks whilst mugging at the audience.
Then “Person” and soon his new girlfriend and the little English town are subjected to 90 minutes of violence and disaster. Buildings blow up, invasions and gun battles come and go, disease and cannibalism take hold, all presented by a small group of actors continuing to do silly walks and mugging. This is all so that “Person” and his girlfriend, then wife, can tell each other that they’re still “alright” in between catastrophes.
I suppose it’s about British stoicism but one things for certain it’s boring and infantile.
The subjects of its satire are so blunt it’s pointless - anyone remember the last time there was a bomb in a small, English, market town? Me neither. There’s even a joke about how people show off to their friends via holiday postcards. Has anyone sent one this century? Theresa May is parodied with a song about sandwich fillings. I’ve no idea why.
It’s possible writer and director imagined they were creating a new spin on the Theatre of the Absurd - a type of theatre pioneered in the middle of the last century that employed a dark and grotesque exaggeration of everyday life to unsettle our perspectives. But this took effort and skill and neither seems to have been brought to this project by writer or director.
Sitting through PITY has the feel of watching a really spoilt and shrill child showing off by jumping up and down in your face. At first you let yourself be bullied into the occasional chuckle but then irritation sets in and all you can think about is when it’ll stop, wondering who on earth permitted, encouraged and indulged such nonsense.
Mullarkey’s last play ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON was one of the worst plays I’ve ever seen at the National, now PITY is the worst thing I’ve ever seen at the Royal Court.
The poor cast. They try hard but ultimately you “pity” them almost as much as the audience.
We live in fascinating times with so many urgent stories and issues to explore. What a waste of an opportunity PITY is.
It was new to me but A MONSTER CALLS is a much loved Children’s novel by Patrick Ness, a cherished film and now an extremely accomplished stage show, currently running at the Old Vic Theatre.