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Playwright Penelope Skinner’s transferring Edinburgh Fringe hit ‘Angry Alan’ is a monologue send up of masculine entitlement and the shitshow that is the meninist/alt right/incel movements.
It concerns Roger, an American man who feels oppressed by feminism. There is the danger of being a bit on-the-nose. Yet Skinner’s script is not only extremely funny, but it also makes Roger unexpectedly likeable, even as it condemns his views.
In this Skinner – who also directs – is aided considerably by US actor Donald Sage Mackay, who has an irresistible, Rob Delaney-style manboy affability to him. It’s not that we really agree with him on anything. It’s just that he’s too hapless to see as a monster. Divorced, and filled with unresolved anger at his unceremonious sacking from his well-paid former job, his genial exterior conceals a rage and frustration that he seems largely oblivious to.
One day, though, he happens across Angry Alan, a Jordan Peterson/Alex Jones/Milo Yiannopoulos-style ‘online activist’ who explains how all male suffering can be attributed to the overwhelming success of feminism, which has tipped the world into a ‘gynocentric’ society, in which men are persecuted for just being men. Roger says this not with hate in his eyes, but with childish credulity and puppyish enthusiasm, like he’s sharing probable truths from a really interesting nature documentary he just watched.
Does it let Roger off the hook making him this likeable? Not really: the views he spouts are vile, despite his reasonable tone, and it’s a more powerful skewering for not making him a frothing extremist. Things do escalate, though: Roger ill-advisiedly combines attendance at a conference hosted by Alan with a bonding camping trip with his half-estranged son – it culminates in a twist I saw coming, but a shock ending I didn’t.
Skinner’s production is accompanied by projections, which actually broke down entirely on the performance I saw. But it’s a testament to Skinner’s excellent script and – angry, teasing, funny, compassionate – Mackay superb turn that it didn’t seem to matter.
This review is from the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe