Simon Stephens is a playwright whose recent work has been found on big stages with starry actors like Andrew Scott and Ian McKellen. So this four-hander (that for the most part is actually a two-hander) that debuted in Dublin makes for a startlingly intimate affair.
Ashton (Ross Gaynor) and Reece (Ian Toner) have become unlikely bedfellows stuck in a bunker together while an apocalypse rages outside. Three years in, they know everything they could possibly know about each other, and maintain what little sense of hope they can by roleplaying key ‘moments’ from each other’s life – selecting treasured memories as you might a show on Netflix.
The conversation teeters on the philosophical in places (is hope a blessing or a curse? Should they be drawing maps to preserve a memory of the land they remember, or attempting to head out into whatever it’s become?), but for the most part it’s a frank and relatable look at what really matters if you were to strip everything else away. For Ashton, it’s memories of a crush, a promotion, his mother; for Reece, it’s his son.
‘Trapped in a bunker’ is a convenient scenario for a play, not least because it negates the problem of tricky set changes, and ‘there’s an apocalypse outside’ is an obvious ploy to drive characters into said bunker – which is to say that we’ve seen this set up before. But Stephens really gets the cogs whirring over what any of us might do under similar circumstances. Case in point is the appearance of a fly, which at first seems like a precious sign of life existing, but – duh – these guys haven’t eaten fresh protein for so long that the fly is swiftly smooshed into a morsel of that.
There are other really evocative moments too: a record is played for the first time in years, an infected tooth is yanked out with string in a horrifyingly convincing stunt (props to director Rex Ryan), and when a stranger, Presley (Fionn Ó Loingsigh), arrives, we see the men savour slivers of fresh meat.
This is not your typical apocalypse, mind. Reece’s penchant for walks suggests it’s feasible for the men to leave the bunker and return safely, and the presence of fresh tulips on the table of Andrew Clancy’s set – a make-shift living space lined by baked bean tins repurposed as candle holders – suggests they do, on occasion. There are no flesh-eating zombies beyond its steely doors. In fact, the imminent danger is never explicitly stated, but we do know this is a world in climate chaos, ravaged by fires, floods and pandemics. The fact the railway tracks are being dismantled also suggests there’s no return. In that sense, it’s like a terrible cry from the not-so-distant future.
Here to hammer this home is a whole fourth character, Mary (Holly Demaine), who briefly appears to deliver a lyrical and terrifying speech honing in on what the planet burning would involve in a micro sense (domestic cats, cancer, Italians, chocolate and much more all up in flames!).
But for all its vivid world-building, there are red herrings and tangents that could be tidied up. It’s not yet a magnum opus but a climate drama that, with some tweaks, holds great potential.
