Romans: A Novel
Alice Birch’s Romans: A Novel is a tiny bit like a British feminist version of The Lehman Trilogy, if the three Lehman brothers were replaced by the Roman siblings - three seemingly immortal, semi-allegorical, deeply damaged brothers whose brutal childhoods in the Victorian era have disastrous consequences for the next 150 years of humanity.
The first new play in aeons from the author of modern classics Anatomy of a Suicide and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, Birch’s Romans is a bleakly irrelevant epic drama with a touch of Pyncheon-esque humour that centres on Kyle Soller’s Jack – undoubtedly the protagonist – plus his brothers: the sadistic, hugely successful Marlow (Oliver Johnstone) and the gentle, fucked up, possibly a serial killer Edmund (Stuart Thompson). They exist between the Victorian age and the present day without ever seeming to get past middle age.
‘My father wanted only sons – he had to get through three dead daughters to get to us’ intones Jack at the beginning. Wrapped in a huge scarf the Andor star kicks matters off playing Jack as a sweet young boy: a little hooked on the gung ho propaganda of the British Empire, but fundamentally a charming little thing who loves his mum and can’t imagine a world without her. Alas, she dies in childbirth, just as he has a strange encounter with his uncle John, an unsettling, blood-soaked figure returned from an unspecified Victorian war.
Things go downhill: Jack and his brother Marlow are sent away to boarding school...
