“this twisted script and Henley’s gut-wrenching execution are plenty to keep us at home one more night, voraciously glued to the screen”
I first encountered Philip Ridley as a teenager, reading Pitchfork Disney, his 1991 play about an agoraphobic brother and sister who survive on chocolate and horror stories of the outside world. I’d never read anything like it; the strange recipe of graphic and often violent subversion coalescing with playful whimsy and childish naivety. Like Roald Dahl on a nasty come-down.
Ridley doesn’t appear to have changed his tune in his newest play, Tarantula, in which we accompany sweet adolescent Toni on her first real date with a boy she really fancies, and then, rather suddenly, through a harrowing near-death attack and the ensuing trauma it inevitably spawns.
Georgie Henley’s performance is rich and complicated. Unlike most trauma narratives, Henley’s Toni never loses her desire to be liked and likeable, and to maintain a sunny disposition. Rather than descending into shadowy darkness, Toni is desperate to see the light, making the story all the more troubling. Her smile stretches wider and wider until we can hardly see her at all, in her place just a manic plea for everything to be okay.
Ridley has also never shied away from casual domestic subversion and he does so with such ease, it feels crass to bring it up. But it also feels important and worthy of applause, so needs must. In this case it’s Toni’s dad who stays at home with the kids, whilst her mum tries her hand at various jobs. Toni’s older brother, a seeming classic trouble maker who, in someone else’s story would likely continue to represent something nasty and unlikeable, reveals depth and an unexpected self-awareness. And it appears that everyone is fairly sexually fluid and suffers no judgement. None of this is dwelled upon at all, which is what makes it so completely refreshing.
The one-woman format with little to no production – flood lighting becomes spotlighting on occasion, and half way through Henley removes a t-shirt to reveal sportswear – has become fairly commonplace in the past year, and understandably so what with theatres having to constantly change their programming to fit with fresh lockdowns and social distancing. Nonetheless it seems quite brave to do this only a couple of weeks before theatres (hopefully) open as usual, when attention spans are at an all-time low and everyone is so desperate to leave the house, we’re sitting outside restaurants in jumpers and coats, huddling beside outdoor heaters and pretending it’s not just started raining.
But Ridley was never going to have a problem holding the audience’s attention and director Wiebke Green clearly knows that. Whilst two hours is quite a lot to ask of an online audience at the moment, this twisted script and Henley’s gut-wrenching execution are plenty to keep us at home one more night, voraciously glued to the screen.
“credit goes to this group of five actors whose dialogue flows naturally despite the socially-distanced situation“
Money by Isla van Tricht is a play written for the time of lockdown, created as a virtual and interactive production performed live and experienced via Zoom. But there is no sitting back to just watch this show as each member of the audience has a role to play. We are invited into a meeting between five members of a charity on the brink of collapse, but which has been offered a large life-saving donation. At the end of the meeting we will get to vote whether the charity should accept the money or not.
Appearing on film is the inscrutable Jennifer Anders (Mel Giedroyc), CEO of the philanthropic corporation, telling us, “We want to give back. We want to make a difference” but the source of the money appears to be ethically questionable. Can the charity in all good conscience accept the donation suspecting that it comes from all the bad things in the world that they campaign against?
The design of the production is clever, exploiting technology into a theatrical media. Our virtual theatre is a computer screen with five boxes each containing one of our five characters. With the movements of his actors limited, the Director (Guy Woolf) concentrates on subtleties to provide visual variation. Glenn (Aaron Douglas) takes a drink of water and gesticulates demonstrably. Angela (Sarel Madziya) for the most part passionate, on another occasion looks demure, embarrassed – “Now would be a good time for a hug” – and she looks away from her camera, no longer able to look us in the eye; Kaia (Nemide May) moves forward towards her camera as her passion rises so her head fills our screen. Avery (Adam Rachid Lazaar) leaves his seat in frustration and we see him in miniature at the far end of his room unsure of where to turn. Flo (Loussin-Torah Pilikian) sits bemusedly centre screen, confused by inner doubts.
There is no set, of course, as such. Each character sits in their Zoom box on our screen. What can we learn from the pristine or cluttered background image behind them? An electric guitar, their own graduation photograph, an obscure national flag (or is it a pride statement?), flowers (from the garden or from an admirer?), a piece of modern art, a picture of a tiger… A bit of something to hint at the private life of each of them.
On two occasions, the meeting divides into breakout rooms and the audience chooses where to go. We absorb the scene in front of us but wonder what we are missing in the other room. In these scenes the conversation turns to the personal and we discover more about each character. It is this slow transfer of information that becomes the focus of interest.
Great credit goes to this group of five actors whose dialogue flows naturally despite the socially-distanced situation. They all remain focused throughout, aware that on Zoom they are always on stage. But the dialogue itself is too often not absorbing enough for the length of the play. Once we understand the dilemma and we see where each character stands, it is the personal circumstances and backstory of each character that becomes more involving. But nothing quite goes far enough and, in the end, despite everyone being involved in the crucial vote, the principal dilemma is somewhat lacking.
