State of Emergency *** TNT
In German playwright Falk Richter’s disturbing 80-minute three hander, a man, a woman and their defiantly incommunicative teenage son are viewed from behind the supposed security of floor to ceiling panes of glass.
Ensconced in the protective environment of a gated community, they should feel safe from the underprivileged violence raging on the other side of the fence beyond. But their sheltered isolation brings its own torments and, as her husband fails to meet his targets at work, the woman is terrified that this pristine, sterile way of life - a prison of their own choosing - is about to be snatched away from them.
Falk’s satire of a supposed utopian existence provides no solutions, but Geraldine Alexander’s immaculate, taut, probing wife and Jonathan Cullen’s weary husband, slipping away into narcoleptic oblivion, are both excellent, powerfully conveying the trapped tension that wealth and elitism can unintentionally create.
In German playwright Falk Richter’s disturbing 80-minute three hander, a man, a woman and their defiantly incommunicative teenage son are viewed from behind the supposed security of floor to ceiling panes of glass.
Ensconced in the protective environment of a gated community, they should feel safe from the underprivileged violence raging on the other side of the fence beyond. But their sheltered isolation brings its own torments and, as her husband fails to meet his targets at work, the woman is terrified that this pristine, sterile way of life - a prison of their own choosing - is about to be snatched away from them.
Falk’s satire of a supposed utopian existence provides no solutions, but Geraldine Alexander’s immaculate, taut, probing wife and Jonathan Cullen’s weary husband, slipping away into narcoleptic oblivion, are both excellent, powerfully conveying the trapped tension that wealth and elitism can unintentionally create.
Gate, Pembridge Road W11 (020-7229 0706). Until December 13 £16
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