Theatre

Having stood on the District line to Sloane Square, I was grateful to find a stool to perch on in Miriam Buether’s spectacular transformation of the Royal Court into something resembling the tube. Most of the audience is required to stand and some of those standing may be actors. There is no hiding place for those watching as the characters emerge to perform in the centre. It can get pretty dangerous too – a final gut-wrenching fight nearly sent my notebook flying into my neighbour.

Mike Bartlett’s play lasts for just 40 tense minutes. It’s tunnel theatre for those with tunnel vision. Adam Arnold’s Child is a victim of his parents’ divorce, but also guilty of the same manipulative blackmail as everyone else. Lia Williams’ febrile Woman has thrown Ben Miles’ Man out and re-married a wealthy, smug bastard called Karl (the only character to be given a name). The absent father struggles to maintain a relationship with his son who despises him because he is weak, poor, and reads books, which according to the boy are ‘gay’. We are told by the man himself that he is good, but the flaw in the play is that we never see it for ourselves, rather his increasing desperation as the Woman threatens to cut off all contact altogether.

The world of Karl and the Woman is our world, one that is materialistic and prizes a thuggish self-confidence over thought. These people, after all, emerge out of the audience. It’s an impressive feat to take on so much in such a short time and Bartlett is helped by a devastating production by Sacha Wares who, following ‘Generations’, is beginning to specialise in creating this kind of environmental theatre with Buether. There were times when it occurred to me that ‘My Child’ could have been staged in the Theatre Upstairs for a fraction of the budget. But it wouldn’t have been half as exciting.