“It feels like it came from a young, angsty mind who hasn’t seen or read enough yet but who has a lot of exciting potential”
There are certain trademarks of a Philip Ridley story present, in some formation or other, in pretty much everything he writes: deep unexplained trauma, repression, mania, dark humour and unusual family dynamics. Normally these markers serve as a jumping-off point for nuanced and unexpected ideas- his seminal 1991 play, The Pitchfork Disney, for example, or Tender Napalm, staged only last year at the Kings Head Theatre. But in the case of The Poltergeist, they serve as the entire idea, with no nuance or unexpectedness in sight.
In fact, after the first minute of the script I know exactly what I’m in for: Artist, Sasha (Joseph Potter) tensely prepares to visit his brother for his niece’s birthday party which he desperately doesn’t want to attend, even with his calming, lovely partner Chet in tow. He’s already seething over his favourite face mask being empty, nastily predicting his boyfriend’s behaviours by counting down 3-2-1 before Chet will inevitably knock on the bathroom door to check he’s ok (what a monster). He’s cynical and mean in a way that leaves no room for sympathy, and which makes any ‘jokes’ completely not funny; unfortunate, given we’ve got to spend the next 85 minutes with him as a spitting, crazed wreck.
Don’t get me wrong, whilst we’ve seen the repressed trauma story a million times, I still think it’s relevant and meaty enough for us to see it some more. But 85 minutes of being glared and yelled at will not cut it.
Potter, being the only performer, is required to play multiple roles at this children’s party. He works exceedingly hard throughout, not only cranking up his already raging character from 10 to 11, but also switching in a group conversation between five or six characters. But with the combination of too many voices speaking in close proximity, and the characters being only vague, stereotyped outlines, it becomes exhausting and insipid to watch. And the big reveal of why Sasha is angry at his brother comes so late and is already so completely predictable that the relief it’s supposed to bring hardly touches the sides. If Potter hadn’t been directed to spit every word with intense hate from the very beginning, it’s possible the effect would have been different, but likely nominally so.
A set and costume consultant is listed in the programme, but there’s no staging, and Potter wears a single outfit throughout- a shiny shirt tucked into light blue jeans- which I hate. It takes until Sasha and Chet are in the car on a mobile phone for me to realise this is set in the present day, because he’s dressed like an early ‘80s George Michael.
If this were a young writer’s first foray, I would likely feel quite different. It feels like it came from a young, angsty mind who hasn’t seen or read enough yet but who has a lot of exciting potential. But it’s from a giant! Philip Ridley, for goodness’ sake! And in the context of his wildly impressive oeuvre, this is beyond disappointing.
“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.
