Possibly the worst thing I have ever
seen on a stage was a cack-handed attempt to invoke the atmosphere of
Japanese ghost/horror movies. It’s some kind of relief to see that it
can after all be done. I’m not sure if that is what Anthony Neilson had
in mind for his latest devised/written-up piece; I’m not sure about
much of its 80 minutes, though there is a great deal seething around in
an obscure gumbo. With Chahine Yavroyan’s rigorously dim lighting and
Miriam Buether’s set fronted by a scrim, an air of unreality, of
dream-impenetrability as well as discomfiture pervades it. Dreams seem
to play a part, and/or an experience of near-death or actual death. The
title reverberates in several senses: as well as simply moving house,
connotations of a sleeper agent (ha!), a criminal given a new identity
after release from prison, abduction and afterlife all flicker through.
As we enter, Marjorie is hoovering. She falls unconscious, and on
recovery (?) is told, “It’s time to move on.” Suddenly she is a
teaching assistant, speaking to her new neighbour Kerry; in a blackout,
they switch identities without explanation. Marjorie, Kerry and a third
woman, Connie, all appear linked somehow. A missing, probably murdered
child is an offstage presence, as are two young girls “upstairs”;
another strand concerns a man who imprisoned his daughter in the
basement for years and who may now be living in this town... So we have
echoes of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, Josef Fritzl (one strength of
Neilson’s approach of working out his material only during the
rehearsal period is immediacy), and perhaps Mary Bell also. We cannot
tell who is alive or dead, real or unreal, past, present or future. It
might be intended to muse upon identity, guilt, complicity and such as
well of course as our collective social hysteria about child
abduction/abuse/murder, but I think its principal intended response is
simply disquiet. It has been a while since Neilson has been this
unpleasant, though I don’t say that as any kind of condemnation. This
is a haunting piece, not in a delicate, ethereal sense but one that
reconnects us with our primal fear of the dark. Even as I was leaving
the theatre afterwards, I was further unsettled as a long-haired usher
loomed out of the shadows, for all the world like the terrifying girl
in
Ringu.
Written for the Financial
Times.