Tag Archives: Sam Steiner

You Stupid Darkness!

★★★

Southwark Playhouse

You Stupid Darkness!

You Stupid Darkness!

Southwark Playhouse

Reviewed – 20th January 2020

★★★

 

“There’s a lot to like in the gentleness of Steiner’s script, but it’s a slow burn that’s really too slow”

 

In a time of political chaos, social turmoil, and environmental catastrophe, it’s easy to feel like the end of the world is right around the corner. It’s no surprise apocalypse stories feel particularly relevant right now.

Sam Steiner’s play, directed by James Grieve, is set in a future, disintegrating Britain. People are more-or-less keeping calm and carrying on despite toxic air, power outages, bridges collapsing, and buildings crumbling. The disaster is never specified – we don’t know whether this is the aftermath of WWIII, the effects of unchecked climate change, or both – but we do know trees are falling and the sea has turned viscous.

Four volunteers meet in a dilapidated call centre one night a week to run an emotional support helpline. Their job is to provide reassurance, although they’re barely holding it together themselves. On top of the world falling apart, Frances (Jenni Maitland) is heavily pregnant at a time when pregnancy is considered misguided or radically optimistic. Jon (Andy Rush) is going through a rough patch in his marriage. Angie (Lydia Larson) makes the best of her difficult upbringing. Joey (Andrew Finnigan), seventeen years old, is facing what feels like a pointless question of applying for university.

It may sound bleak, but Steiner handles the dark subject matter with a refreshingly light touch. While the apocalypse rages outside, the Brightline volunteers do their best to simply get on with the day. They hang up their gas masks when they arrive, attempt to make coffee without a working kettle, deal with perverts on the phones, and reluctantly participate in Frances’ positivity exercises.

The play is a series of small moments. Steiner gives us little window-like scenes through which we see the characters try to make connections with the people on the phones and each other, conversations hinting at personal lives and troubles beyond the office walls. There’s a lot to like in the gentleness of Steiner’s script, but it’s a slow burn that’s really too slow. Without much in the way of story, the two-hour runtime feels very long. Steiner’s scenes may be delicate and perceptive, but they lack momentum. And while the characters are strong, and well-performed by a talented cast, the show needs the backbone of a plot to help support its length.

Amy Jane Cook’s astute design presents the call centre as a little haven from the desolation outside, held together purely by blind optimism and denial. Everywhere signs of deterioration are refusing to be acknowledged. Gaping holes in the walls are covered up by motivational posters. Frances stubbornly tacks them back up each time they fall down. A whiteboard enthusiastically displays the word of the week (‘Communication’ ‘Optimism’). Intense storm winds blowing snow-like debris occasionally blast open the door. When the call centre floods, the stage fills with water. But when Frances fills the space with candles, the scene conveys a powerful sense of hope. The message of perseverance, resilience, and hope, no matter how irrational, will undoubtedly resonate with anyone feeling overwhelmed by the world today.

You Stupid Darkness! is a show full of heart and humour about the end of the world. A distinctive, insightful script with something to say – it’s a shame it’s missing a trick.

 

Reviewed by Addison Waite

Photography by Ali Wright

 


You Stupid Darkness!

Southwark Playhouse until 22nd February

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button | ★★★★★ | May 2019
Afterglow | ★★★½ | June 2019
Fiver | ★★★★ | July 2019
Dogfight | ★★★★ | August 2019
Once On This Island | ★★★ | August 2019
Preludes | ★★★★ | September 2019
Islander | ★★★★★ | October 2019
Superstar | ★★★★ | November 2019
Potted Panto | ★★★★ | December 2019
Cops | ★★★★★ | January 2020

 

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Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons
★★★

Barons Court Theatre

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons

Barons Court Theatre

Reviewed – 9th May 2019

★★★

 

“an unusual, darkish romcom with thoughtful messages and ideas to discover”

 

If we were only allowed to speak 140 words a day, who would we save them for and what would we say? How would we manage without small talk or singing along to our favourite songs? In ‘Lemons…’ (not to waste words) writer, Sam Steiner, creates a stifled world of confined expression and prompts us to consider the implications on both a personal level and as a society. Oliver and Bernadette, musician and lawyer, meet in the romantic setting of a cat graveyard, fall in love and soon move in together. As the relationship develops, the bumps appear; she is jealous of his ex and he finds her work hard to accept. Sometimes they talk about it, sometimes they don’t. When the Government passes the ‘Quietude Bill’ they realise what it will mean to lose what they have always taken for (140) granted.

Steiner builds the narrative with a string of short, non-chronological dialogues, following the journey of the pair’s communication from dreamy beginnings to when ‘I love you’ becomes a habit. He suggests, perhaps a little unimaginatively, alternative ways they might communicate in the future and demonstrates how they waste their word limit as hurtful ammunition. The script is carefully linked throughout with random numbers referring to the daily ration and the ‘Westminster’ theme clearly makes itself heard. But the action wavers between ‘their’ story and the political outside world, not quite focusing on either and not reaching a culminating point.

The strong chemistry between Jemima Murphy’s precise, crafted acting and Charlie Suff’s natural stage presence engages the audience emotionally and director, Hamish Clayton, creates a cinematic effect, punctuating the fragmented scenario with choreographed set changes and accompanying lighting (Gregory Jordan) and sound (Charlotte Brown). However, the uniformity and repetition produces a linear form, lacking overall shape, and the constant soundscape (with the exception Madness’ Baggy Trousers) pushes the audience into the corresponding moods rather than being drawn in by the actors. It only becomes theatrically dramatic, apart from a couple of political outbursts from Oliver, when they decide to spend their last five minutes of carefree conversation telling each other what has really been on their minds.

Although it feels ironed out and in need of a few creases, ‘Lemons…’ is an unusual, darkish romcom with thoughtful messages and ideas to discover. Less explicit programme notes would allow everyone their own interpretation of analogies as, in the end, more than a political statement about freedom of speech or the tenuous parallel of Brexit, it incites us to reflect on our own ability and fear of putting our hearts and souls into words.

 

Reviewed by Joanna Hetherington

Photography by  Maximilian Clarke

 


Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons

Barons Court Theatre until 27th May

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
The Big Things | ★★½ | April 2018
Owls | ★★★ | July 2018
Sex Magick | ★★★ | October 2018
The Fatal Eggs | ★★★★★ | April 2019

 

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