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I don’t believe any of rising-star playwright Barney Norris’s tender, elegiac plays have played a venue bigger than the 180-seat Bush before. But the relative ease – with some reservations — with which his latest ‘Nightfall’ insinuates itself into Nicholas Hytner’s Bridge, a venue five times bigger, suggests Norris’s fringe days are probably now over.
‘Nightfall’ is set on a struggling farm in Hampshire. As it begins, twentysomething siblings Ryan and Lou, and their pal Pete – who we soon discover has recently done time – are dicking about setting up an illegal oil siphon on the hideous, hulking pipeline that runs past their house. It all seems innocent enough, and our sympathy for the family – headed by Claire Skinner’s damaged matriarch Jenny – only grows as we discover they’re all still paralysed by their father’s recent death.
Achingly melancholic as it all is, there’s something a bit by-numbers about a first half that cranks up the Chekhovian elegy and rural decline to 11 without really allowing anything particularly startling to happen, at least not until the giddy rush of an endearingly inept proposal before the interval.
In the second half, though, ‘Nightfall’ grows fangs, and Norris seriously screws with our sympathies.
This is largely done via the wondrous Skinner, magnificent as the petty, desperately frightened Jenny. Her elemental self-interest is breathtaking to behold – she’s not nasty per se, but her instincts are purely corrosive.
It’s a quartet of strong performances: ‘W1A’ star Ophelia Lovibond is impressively intense as the traumatised Lou; Sion Daniel Young brings a dazed charisma to Ryan, a free spirit allowing himself to be chained by his avoidance of reality; and as Pete, the most normal of the bunch, Ukweli Roach is good as a man biting his tongue so hard he’s practically eating his own lower jaw.
There are some problems: Laurie Sansom’s production has an impressively massive set from Rae Smith, with a beautiful, Turner-ish sky, but there are a couple of moments where the actors really struggle to be heard in the cavernous space. To a certain extent ‘Nightfall’ feels like it’s covering similar ground, more timidly, than Mike Bartlett’s ‘Albion’ of last year, which vigorously pushed the state-of-the-nation Brexit analogies that are only sighingly hinted at here. But the conclusion is still gently devastating.
At some point, Norris – who is barely into his 30s – may have to sharpen his daggers a bit if he’s to really step into the major leagues and stay there. But what he does do and say, he does so beautifully.