Hamlet famously opined that ‘The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king’. Mike Bartlett's new climate change play, though doubtless sincere, is chiefly memorable, not for its warning content, but for its eye-catching design and direction.
For this co-production with Headlong, Miriam Buether has transformed the National Theatre's smallest space into a bar-like catwalk, a scorching orange-red snake book-ended by a pair of small raised stages which house the more sedate scenes and flanked by video projections of London.
The audience stands in the playing area or sits either perched on swivel stools or in the gallery as the actors suddenly emerge from the crowd. Theatre doesn't come much more in-yer face than this.
Bartlett focuses on three sisters and their estranged father (a cold Bill Paterson), now a harbinger of doom, but in his younger years, back in 1968, a climatologist who sacrificed scientific integrity for monetary gain. Now, in various ways, his daughters are paying the price. The oldest (Lia Williams' serious Sarah) is LibDem minister for the environment, trying to reduce air traffic in a new coalition government as her marriage crumbles; Anna Madeley's heavily pregnant Freya wanders distraught across London, the music from her i-pod providing the soundtrack to her life as she frets about bringing a baby into a world on the verge of catastrophe; and Jessica Raine's out-of-control Jasmine is an unhappy, uninhibited student grabbing at each moment in case there's no future.
Director Rupert Goold maximises the impact of Bartlett's uncharacteristically epic play (his previous work at the Royal Court - My Child , Contractions and the award-winning Cock – has been on a much more intimate and claustrophobic scale) merging each scene swiftly into the next and dazzling with visual surprises.
There are excellent performances all round (including Geoffrey Streatfeild as Freya's concerned husband and Tom Goodman-Hill as Sarah's disintegrating spouse) and although Bartlett is less
than convincing by the time he eventually reaches 2525, this is still one of the theatrical highlights of the summer.
Cottesloe, National Theatre until 22 September.
For this co-production with Headlong, Miriam Buether has transformed the National Theatre's smallest space into a bar-like catwalk, a scorching orange-red snake book-ended by a pair of small raised stages which house the more sedate scenes and flanked by video projections of London.
The audience stands in the playing area or sits either perched on swivel stools or in the gallery as the actors suddenly emerge from the crowd. Theatre doesn't come much more in-yer face than this.
Bartlett focuses on three sisters and their estranged father (a cold Bill Paterson), now a harbinger of doom, but in his younger years, back in 1968, a climatologist who sacrificed scientific integrity for monetary gain. Now, in various ways, his daughters are paying the price. The oldest (Lia Williams' serious Sarah) is LibDem minister for the environment, trying to reduce air traffic in a new coalition government as her marriage crumbles; Anna Madeley's heavily pregnant Freya wanders distraught across London, the music from her i-pod providing the soundtrack to her life as she frets about bringing a baby into a world on the verge of catastrophe; and Jessica Raine's out-of-control Jasmine is an unhappy, uninhibited student grabbing at each moment in case there's no future.
Director Rupert Goold maximises the impact of Bartlett's uncharacteristically epic play (his previous work at the Royal Court - My Child , Contractions and the award-winning Cock – has been on a much more intimate and claustrophobic scale) merging each scene swiftly into the next and dazzling with visual surprises.
There are excellent performances all round (including Geoffrey Streatfeild as Freya's concerned husband and Tom Goodman-Hill as Sarah's disintegrating spouse) and although Bartlett is less
than convincing by the time he eventually reaches 2525, this is still one of the theatrical highlights of the summer.
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