What’s so insistently odd about this new play from Andrew Upton about the pull of fame and the drag of middle age is that, despite everyone involved knowing far too much about the subject, it feels vacuously anaesthetised from any kind of emotional realism.
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s stuttering production tells the pedestrian tale of a ’90s rock band, reunited for one weekend and a potential tour at the behest of the financially embarrassed Moon, Aussie drummer, genial fool, and group football. Soon, the embarrassment leaks elsewhere. Cindy (a steely-eyed Ruth Gemmell) was once the girlfriend of John, the band’s vituperative frontman, who lost his music when he abandoned his drug-fuelled hedonism. Ten years of total silence since the band’s breakup are partially explained by the fact that she is now with Phil (a wasted Paul Hilton), bassist, junkie, and John’s younger brother. The question of the tour becomes subsumed in whether they’ll be able to rehearse at all.
Upton’s play, and John Hannah’s determinedly lowkey, lowering performance in the lead, both up the ante when John’s intensely irritating yoga wife, Lynn, experiences an unexpected heroin relapse. And the scene in which John and Phil tentatively recover the dysfunctional dynamic that allows them to reconnect is utterly wrenching to behold. Tunes in such jarringly discordant keys are Upton’s forte, and it transpires that this is really a play about whether, after ecstasy, contentment is possible. The most pressing mystery is why Upton and Hoffman pull their dramatic punches until it’s so late in the day, that you’re in danger of losing all interest in the fight.
