Like his UK-breakthrough play decade
ago,
thom pain (based on nothing),
Will Eno’s piece comes to London from the Edinburgh Fringe where it was
much acclaimed. Also like the earlier work, it is a monologue about
loss delivered by an intelligent but embittered man. Which is not for a
moment to accuse
Title & Deed
of being formulaic; it is another prime example of Eno’s ability to
send the intellect and emotions in opposite directions simultaneously.
As the nameless speaker seemingly rambles about being, as the subtitle
puts it, “slightly foreign”, gradually the curious and surreal folk
traditions he repeatedly mentions in passing fade into the background
behind an increasingly pervasive sense of outsiderdom, which itself
grows ever more existential: we all share, simply by virtue of living,
the sense of living elsewhere. But we can never
share it, because, well, we’re
somewhere else.
This piece was written specifically for Conor Lovett of Ireland’s Gare
St Lazare Players, who have for some time specialised in the work of
Samuel Beckett; barely a month ago, Lovett was performing Beckett’s
short story
First Love across
town at the Arcola. There is an unsurprisingly Beckettian feel to
Title & Deed, then; but whereas
Beckett figures always seem to be parsecs away from those around them,
“Man” here seems separated by the merest sheet of glass: thin,
transparent, but unbreakable. The fleetingly mentioned, tantalisingly
unexplained quirks of his home such as Reverse Weddings or Terrible
Saturdays slowly coalesce with equally fragmentary recollections of
past times with various partners and with more abstract musings, until
the big picture swims into focus: “Time, place, happiness. A person
should be able to figure it out. It’s only three things.”
Lovett is a low-key performer, which fits his character’s diffidence
perfectly (as it should, having been tailored to him). With his baby
face, his little remaining hair cropped extremely short, but always the
hint that there are hidden depths, he seems like an ingratiating
version of Lex Luthor, who is not advancing his master plan but rather
searching for one in the first place. After 65 minutes, the piece
doesn’t end, it just stops. But it keeps going in your head.
Written for the Financial
Times.