directed by
Anna Mackim
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Middle-class moral meltdown is, it seems, back in fashion. The last
piece of new theatre writing I saw, Seduced at the Finborough,
shared with this new play by the award-winning Charlotte Jones themes of
the breakdown of moral certainties and the ennui of modern life. Jones's
ghostly tragicomedy also weaves in the near-universal contemporary
obsession with the vulnerability of children in order to tug at the
heart and deepen what would otherwise be a simple comedy of modern
manners.
Set in a present-day, minimalist house somewhere between well-to-do
Hampstead and Highgate, we enter the world of Max Villiers (Matthew
Marsh), a ghost writer of semi-literate-celebrity autobiographies, and
his wife Harriet (Eleanor David), who has become obsessed with
"beautiful things" such as the "semi-antique" rug she has bought. It is
Halloween, and they are preparing for a drinks party they have
accidentally organised by inviting Imogen (Katherine Parkinson), an old
friend of their absent daughter, Anna, who is off being a peace activist
"somewhere dangerous". Expected also are proletarian family friend Eddie
(Lloyd Hutchinson) and his New Age neurotic date, Jacklyn (Adie Allen),
as well as Imogen's po-faced civil servant husband Marcus (Orlando
Searle). However, before and during the party, Max is seeing mysterious
visions of Anna as a ten-year old on the newly-installed plasma screen
he otherwise cannot turn on.
Blending broad comedy with spookiness, The Lightning Play is an easy
and enjoyable watch which has a stunning first half and a slightly
disappointing second act. Jones has given us a piece which taps into a
rich vein of concern about the emptiness of an existence defined by what
you possess because what you want or need is out of reach. Working on
several levels, it deals with the longing for spirituality, the
hopelessness of modern, batty alternatives to its absence, the
uncertainty of all moral beliefs, and the difficulty of identity, all
within the sugar-coated setting of what is basically a supernatural
version of The Good Life 2006.
Great art should seek to tell the truth about its time, but should
also entertain. The Lightning Play is certainly one of the most
accomplished examples of this maxim I have seen for a while. I was
genuinely on the edge of my seat come the interval to find out what the
ghostly, Ring-like apparition of the Villiers' absent daughter
meant and what further, Halloween-style eeriness lay ahead. That the
rest of the play turned into a drunken argument about morality, however
inevitably, did rather take something away from the supernatural
ambience the writer had so carefully created at the start.
It is entertaining all the same thanks to the depth of the writing
and the strong performances. Special mention must be made of Searle's
stand-out study in humourlessness as the DEFRA drone, Marcus, and
Allen's great neurotic turn as the nutty Jacklyn. While strong actors,
however, Marsh and David as the estranged marrieds are, sadly, too nice
by half for us to believe in the frost that has settled between them.
The brilliant design of the play, from the set to the filmed inserts,
also deserves praise, being so central to the piece, while making its
transfer to less flexible spaces an interesting challenge for any future
artistic directors.
The Lightning Play gives up its dark secrets in carefully controlled,
well written and plotted chunks that will make you laugh, tear and
slightly shiver. However conventional its form, it is the witty details,
the presentation and the handling of the strong themes that make this
superior theatre.
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