In a B-movie style fantasy, Anne Washburn’s The Twilight Zone is futuristic retro fun. Twisted somewhere between sci-fi and spoof, this darkly stylish fantasy pays loving tribute to American pop culture.In the 1950s, the original writers had tapped into the fears of paranoid America - aliens, communism, nuclear war - and watching them rerun in the 1980s our fears had become more of a reality. What’s unsettling about Washburn’s reworking of a few episodes for a contemporary audience is how frighteningly weirder than ever our world has become.
Being allowed to stay up late on Friday nights in the 80’s, watching the creepy cool black and white sci-fi world whilst eating Chinese takeaway with my older brothers was a seminal part of my childhood, so the prospect of the Almeida adapting the iconic series for the stage was, for me, irresistible. Skilled direction by Richard Jones with creative choreography delivered by a strong, engaging ensemble using Paul Steinberg’s clever, simple set was everything I’d hoped for in shades of grey. Deliciously eerie compositions by Sarah Angliss added to the whole vintage flavour, but those of us who sat in anticipation of the legendary theme were repeatedly teased and made to wait.
The ensemble multi-role in a series of interwoven tales that are more of a loving homage to the series than a detailed episode, and it’s far too wittily delivered to be properly disturbing - that is until we get to the second half when the bizarre starts touching our modern reality.
In The Shelter, when a suburban town reacts to the threat of a nuclear attack, the natural survival instincts of polite all-American neighbours crumble to expose the ugly side of their fears. We’re aware that we’re chuckling at dark parallels to Trump America and Brexit Britain’s xenophobic outlook; then the tone shifted, and it feels like it should be the climatic scene. The laughter became different, the writing steering us to feel a resonance and it felt like the right moment to bring the evening to a point.>
But perfectly cast John Marquez as the Narrator didn’t wrap it up there, and instead we were returned to an earlier scene about cryogenics and space travel (good but too long), with insufficient peak to top the brilliant, previous story. Likewise, although classily delivered, Marquez’s final summing up could have been shorter and brought us to a more focused finish with the pertinent,
We are all of us card carrying citizens of the Twilight Zone.
But at last we were treated to the iconic theme tune.
Haters missed the point, and although it is a little overwritten towards the end, I loved it. Washburn’s adaptation is far more entertaining than her previous Mr Burns at the Almeida, and as it comes to the twilight of its run I consider myself lucky to have caught it. For this reviewer who remembers the TV reruns of Rod Serling’s originals with affection, a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an evening.
The radicalisation of young disenchanted Muslims in western society has become a mainstay of fringe theatre writing of late and perhaps with some justification.