That was Here, but I'm not sure where it was (Sky Arts Playhouse Live)
05/07/2010
Well Here by Eve Ensler will certainly go down as the most perplexing play in the Sky Arts Playhouse Live season at the Riverside Studio.
It started promisingly. A middle-aged couple sitting at home having one of those inane conversations two people have when they've lived together a long time when a young couple walk in and claim to be finally home.
Ooh it's all very allegorical, thought I, as I strained to see the action around the one tall person in the audience I always manage to sit behind. The younger couple have been travelling, footloose and fancy free is the implication, and the wife thinks they look a bit like her and her husband, or younger versions.
*Plot spoilers* The older couple react differently to the situation: the wife is quite accepting, while the husband is hostile. The situation brings out previously unspoken niggles in their relationship. It makes them question how they have changed, what they saw in each other at the beginning and ultimately why they are still together.
Which was all good and gripping and interesting but then there are references to a tree in the garden and the young couples 'people' having been buried there and wars being fought.
It rounds off with a scuffle in which the husband pulls a gun out of the kitchen draw and threatens the young man whose girlfriend responds by also pulling out a gun but actually shoots the husband dead. Then the walls of the set pull apart and the wife does this weird soliloquy about being 'here'.
Polyg thought Ensler was trying to do too much in one play and a think I agree but what all those things were I'm not quite sure. Maybe I was too tired.
If you think you might be able to fathom it out, it will be broadcast live on Wednesday evening on Sky Arts 2 at 9pm.
And as promised in my previous post I'm officially kicking off the Rev Stan/Ben Whishaw six degrees of separation which will apply whenever I go to the theatre:
Well last night was a good start because Andrew Scott was in the audience and he starred opposite Mr W in Cock at the Royal Court last autumn, which I went to see (twice). My reviews are over on my vox blog.
And here's a picture, although I'm not promising photographic evidence of any kind for all RS/BW6DS's