Very chuffed to nab last minute tickets for The Acid Test, by Anna Reiss, at The Royal Court on Monday! Known to me as the inspirationally young playwright who wrote something and won an award last year, I definitely wanted to see something of hers.
Enthusiastically asked to enter “flat number 11 please” by the FOH usher, me and my favourite theatre-buddy Milly squealing at this prospect..! and entered a female, fairy-lighted flat. Beautifully laid bare, the scene was charmingly messy and disordered: girly knickers drying on the maiden, Take a Break! placed beside the television, next to it Catch Me If You Can on DVD, a bottle of pale pink nail varnish behind the television, and various other bits of debris strewn around the room – receipts, odd shoes, a tube of Pringles. Like the play itself the scene was so real it was hard to believe that it had actually been created.
A cuddly toy placed on the shelf, wearing sequin devil horns goes on to observe the Friday night in the flat. We learn that the mess belongs to Dana, Ruth and Jessica; each character so believable and representative of the 20-year-old girls that live today; the blonde n pretty likeable one, the childish indie kid and the slightly macho moody yet ‘deeper’ one. The story starts to unfold once Jessica (macho n moody) brings her dad back to the flat, after he’s been thrown out of the family home. Hysterically awkward at first, dad is offered a drink and things start to un-ravel. During the long, drink fuelled evening, a dysfunctional father-daughter relationship is revealed, one that cannot be blamed on a violent abusive past but one based on simple hatred. The three of them (being dad, Dana and Ruth) turn on Jessica, as Dana and Ruth become uncomfortably affectionate towards the dad.
The direction has a wonderful subtleness to it – everything from chocolate smears on dad’s work shirt (after creepily making strawberries and melted chocolate for the girls) to Jessica’s excruciating body language I found unforgettable. This may be a bit rash (but fuck it, I’m a blogger, I can be opinionated!!): want to get more problem-audiences into theatre? Put on more work like this. A brilliant example of a true, domestic situation that each and everyone one of us can relate to.
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