We have been asked not to reveal a
climactic event in Amy Herzog’s play. This is rather a pity, not
because of any need or compulsion to blow the gaff but rather the
opposite, because the request suggests that enjoyment of the piece is
dependent on a narrative surprise of the “He’s been a ghost all along”
variety.
Indeed, the word “enjoyment” itself rather misrepresents things. Herzog
allows the marital relationship of late-twenties Americans Abby and
Zack to present itself gradually, Michael Longhurst directs with a
discreet touch, and the very title comes from the funky district of
north-eastern Paris in which the couple live... but, man, it’s grim. We
are sure from the kick-off that their respective snarks and
insecurities – Abby’s generated, perhaps, in part by coming off
antidepressants, Zack’s exacerbated by his own dependency on marijuana;
hers woundingly articulated, his often suspiciously suppressed – will
not be overcome. My use of the words “present itself” just now was a
blatant euphemism for “disintegrate”. This is one of those definitively
doomed marriages, and the play’s 95 minutes are not the stuff of
Yuletide diversion.
Its potency is not in the account of
how
things go all to hell, but rather
why
they do: the slow but inexorable uncovering of the truth behind Zack’s
job with Médecins sans Frontières, Abby’s living in the shadow of her
mother’s death, and the pair’s awkward, cultural-imperialist
relationship with their downstairs neighbours and Senegalese-heritage
landlords. Which of the couple will fall completely to pieces, which
will haemorrhage an unbearable, game-changing secret? I’m not blurting
any spoilers when I say that in both cases it’s both. We end up feeling
both relieved that our own relationships, however train-wrecky, have
never been quite this bad, and yet also realising how chillingly close
they have come in so many ways.
Imogen Poots, making a rare stage appearance, flakes convincingly as
Abby; James Norton as Zack holds most of it in until his psychological
dam bursts. Malcolm Kirby and Faith Alabi have a brief but surprisingly
important Francophone coda. It makes for powerful viewing, but as I
say, perhaps not the thing if what you’re after is a slice of seasonal
good cheer.
Written for the Financial
Times.