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It’s difficult to know where to start with ‘Genesis Inc’, but Jenni Murray’s voiceover as the womb of a dreaming Serena – who is desperate to conceive – is as good a place as any. There’s something inspired about using the broadcaster best known for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ in this way. But the sequence just goes on too long, spiralling into confusion as a bunch of other organs pitch in.
This sense of runaway sprawl is a distinguishing trait of Jemma Kennedy’s new play, which premieres at Hampstead Theatre in the fortieth anniversary of the first test tube baby. It pivots on the people who come into the orbit of Genesis Inc, a reproductive medicine facility that offers the possibility of pregnancy – at a high price.
As Serena’s and Geoff’s marriage falls apart as they struggle to pay for the cost of treatment, there’s real anger here about the co-opting of reproduction into yet another way for people to make money. Companies with names like ‘Genesis’ or ‘Creation’ cynically appeal to faith to generate profit.
But Kennedy’s writing is frequently clunky, rife with clumsy dialogue and some dodgy characterisation. There’s not enough elbow room for all of the people in it – tackled by a nine-strong cast on at least double duty – and themes crammed into the play. Clare Perkins’s working-class Sharon, who has a ‘financial arrangement’ with her husband so he won’t hit her, feels notably short-changed, in spite of (and perhaps because of) her strong performance.
Director Laurie Sansom also struggles to resolve the strain of the play’s contending styles, particularly during the first half’s swing between heavily signposted arguments and heavy-handed satire. There’s an overload of video screens in designer Jess Curtis’s set, as Harry Enfield wanders in and out of the vicinity of a South African accent as Dr Marshall, Genesis Inc’s motorbike-riding founder. Unsurprisingly, he hits the funny bone, but it feels aimless.
Things pick up after the interval, as a tilt into full-blown lunacy energises proceedings with the breathless clarity of farce. A dream that reconfigures characters, ‘Wizard of Oz’-style, into the Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah (who gave birth at the sprightly age of 90) is stupidly funny, while making a point about men, hierarchy and power.
The second act also features Arthur Darvill’s gay music teacher, Miles, donating sperm, masturbating into the imagined face of a colleague while being lectured by a vision of feminist writer Susan Sontag. Kudos to Darvill – he really commits to the moment. The production also makes good use of his skill as a musician, as he sings and plays the piano.
Darvill and Laura Howard as Bridget, Miles’s high-flying best friend, who sees an opportunity to float Genesis Inc on the stock market, also get the most intriguing storyline. Their relationship – the complicated mix of twenty-first-century financial worries, parenthood as legacy and what family means these days – is the most compelling aspect of a play that bites off more than it can chew.