Sarah Kane's dark, disturbing play is overburdened with good intentions
Blasted Soho Theatre, London W1
There Came a Gypsy Riding Almeida, London N1
They don't come much more visceral than Blasted, Sarah Kane's famously harrowing first play, first produced in 1995. Rape on stage, masturbation, eye-gouging, baby-eating - the perfect menu for a night of repellent yet compelling drama. Yet this production by the disabled-led company Graeae never fully clambers into Kane's chamber of horrors, leaving us with just the shadow of something unspeakable.
Part of the problem is that it is overburdened with good intentions. There is a giant screen that not only shows a deaf signer, which is fair enough, but also presents the entire play, including stage directions, in typed script. And while the signers do a bit of acting, the actors have to do a bit of interpreting by speaking actions as well as actual dialogue. Furthermore, the director, Jenny Sealey, has given a whole wodge of on-stage business (eating, drinking, smoking) to the deaf signers while actors mime the same actions on stage. This sort of film/live-action coupling is very tricky to pull off, and the cast doesn't come close to achieving it.
Blasted starts off conventionally enough. Ian, a rather leery fortysomething hack (Gerard McDermott), is trying to seduce Cate, a much younger woman (Jennifer-Jay Ellison), in a hotel room. Sucking her thumb and prone to disconcerting fits, Cate is clearly a vulnerable target who wants to be fondled more like a puppy than a sex object. It is easy to see why Ellison, a disabled performer with clearly visible leg supports, was cast in the role; her extreme thinness and apparent physical instability make one fear for her, not least because the designer (Jo Paul) has lumbered her with an uneven floor.
While you quietly worry about Cate falling over, Ian is swigging back gin and encouraging her to masturbate him - stripping to total nudity, rather disconcertingly, at a couple of junctures. However, even when stark bollock naked, he is not convincing in his portrayal of an ageing Lothario, or even as a cynical scribbler.
Things hot up when the room suffers a mortar bombing and the sadistic Soldier arrives, brutally played by David Toole. He has no legs, and gets about on stage on his hands. Toole's stage presence and extraordinary physical fluidity make him a pretty convincing man of action. You cannot take your eyes off him, not even when he is biting someone else's out of their sockets. Or raping someone with a leg stump.
However, for all Blasted's Tarantino-esque schlock, at no point was there a moment where the stalls recoiled in horror, and, dear theatre fan, what is the point of staging anal rape and eye-eating if there ain't one single moment where everyone goes "Gaaaah"? Perhaps Blasted hasn't worn well, or perhaps Graeae's ambition to make the play available to all has actually managed to swamp its violent, nihilistic core.
Meanwhile, down at the Almeida, there is also a lot of breast-beating and wailing, mostly by Imelda Staunton, who stars in Frank McGuinness's new play, There Came a Gypsy Riding. Staunton plays a matriarch with three children, one of whom, Gene, has committed suicide. On what would have been Gene's 21st birthday, she insists her husband and their remaining offspring return to where they were staying when he died, namely their second home on an Irish seashore.
McGuinness has clearly done some research into grief therapy, as he shows us every which way relations are affected by suicide. Yet his characters are so busy feeling sorry for themselves that they forget they are in a play which, over the duration of two hours, should really move on a bit.
The only event of any note is the arrival of mad old Cousin Bridget, played by Eileen Atkins, who raises laughs through the tired old gag of swearing a lot. She reveals a hidden secret left by Gene, and for a while, the play, directed by Michael Attenborough, has the glimmer of surprise within its grasp. Unfortunately, the secret is a damp squib, so we are back to keening and sobbing as the lights fade on Robert Jones's perfectly styled set, which, with its Ikea crockery and matching duvet covers, has holiday home written all over it.
Pick of the week
The Vortex
Royal Exchange, Manchester
Will Young plays in Noël Coward's take on the Bright Young Things.
Happy Days
Lyttelton Theatre, London SE1
Fiona Shaw in Beckett's classic that opened the theatre in 1976.
The Seagull
Royal Court, London SW1
A brilliant cast, including Mackenzie Crook and Kristin Scott Thomas, for the Chekhov classic, directed by Ian Rickson.
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