The Eternal Not (NT), Supernova (Lyric Hammersmith)
Just emerged blinking into the evening sun after a marathon session in the Theatre Arena. Started off with Osip Theatre’s Stab in the Dark, a series of interlaced monologues on the subject of losing your virginity. Nicely performed by the company (fighting against a strange and penetrating growling noise coming from the tent next door!), if a little predictable.
Then came a short interlude from And Remember … We Care, performing Christopher Bland’s satirical number ECPHREB, involving three performers ranting about subjects as diverse as the pretentiousness of Katie Mitchell and the fact they only did the play to get a free ticket to Latitude (a line which struck a chord with many of their performing colleagues I’m sure). This then descended into a sequence of spectacular boasts - eg: ”While you’re walking eight miles to take a piss in something resembling Satan’s colon, we’re backstage being felated by a group of amorous swans”. Great stuff.
So, on to the National Theatre with their production of Lucinda Coxon’s The Eternal Not, about a young couple awaiting the birth of their first child. And when I say ‘awaiting’, I mean really waiting - the doctor confirms that the mother (Helena) has been expecting for nearly two years. During this time, her neurotic husband Bertram has been philandering with other women, accusing his wife of tricking him into the conception. All in all, the baby seems wise to keep on waiting.
The play, based on Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well, is absorbing but lacking in clarity. It gets itself in knots attempting to expound its central theme, and like the baby at its core, it’s still not quite fully formed.
Following the conclusion of The Eternal Not, Sean Holmes bounded on stage to encourage us to stay for the Lyric’s festival offering, Simon Stephens and Tashan Cushnie’s jointly authored Supernova. Though, Holmes explained, the title was written before the play, which should apparently instead be titled A Love Letter to Maquita Oliver (the E4 TV presenter) - though by the end of the piece I felt the former title served just as well.
The short play is a duologue between an aging rocker and his young pretender - a clean-living, well educated 18-year-old virgin. The source of conflict is predictable, but the paternal (or anti-paternal) advice dished out by the older man (a convincingly drunk-acting Ferdy Roberts) to the younger (not-so-convincingly virginal Anthony Welsh) is often laugh-out-loud funny. And disparaging references to the likes of bands like Bat for Lashes (who played here yesterday) and Kaiser Chiefs evoked cheers from the crowd.
The whole piece was rounded off by a rather lame pseudo-rock song (pic above) that descended into a lengthy diatribe against ’her Mag-esty’ Madonna and her insistence on sticking around on the music scene long after her welcome.
And on that note, I’m off to see Grace Jones…
- Theo Bosanquet