Lyttelton, National
Theatre.
11th March
2017, matinee
One of the reasons I loved Lindsey Ferrentino’s play –
receiving its UK premiere after a short run at the Roundabout Theatre Company, New
York, in 2015 – is because it confidently pinpoints a specific time and place, one
that perhaps doesn’t directly relate to UK audiences. It’s sure of the story it
wants to tell, and praise has to go to the National for what seems like a bold
bit of programming. But the play, its
characters and themes, relate to wider issues and stories repeated all across
America and here as well.
Florida, 2011. Jess, a soldier, has returned home after her
third tour of Afghanistan with traumatic injuries. Nothing is the same: she’s
in pain, she can’t get a job, and people treat and look at her differently.
What’s more is that the world around her is changing. NASA’s shuttle programme
is about to have its final launch bringing mass redundancy for its workers and the
closure of many of its surrounding businesses. But Jess has the opportunity to use
new virtual reality technology as a pain management tool; as the unseen and
reassuring ‘Voice’ (Buffy Davis) behind the VR says, it can build her ‘the
perfect world’. From what I’ve read of other reviews, most have said that the
play seems thin material compared to the production and its design. It’s true
that the play pushes the frontiers of what the National – and theatre! – can achieve
in terms of technology. But the virtual reality used in Es Devlin’s design formally
enhances the play’s interests in reality and illusion.
Devlin’s design and Indhu Rubasingham’s extraordinary production
mixes the realism of cinema (and there’s something about the play which seems
fit for the screen) with the uber-theatrical. The stage is a Florida skyline bending
up into a semi bowl which, when unlit, looks moonlike. When lit, the night-time
traffic of Titusville glows orange. At other times the sky is starlit. In the
VR scenes, feathers and snow fill the stage. The ramped stage holds bits of
furniture magically when not in use. The look and feel of the play is stunning.
At one moment, Jess is in her VR world of snowy mountain-scapes, calming blue
lakes and growing Christmas trees. At once it is strange and intangible, real
for Jess but not quite real for us, beautiful but also somehow ‘other’. She
comes crashing out of this world when the stage suddenly becomes the convenience
store. Complete with a tacky Christmas tree (oh so different from the elegant
pine trees of the VR world), shelves of Pringles and Reece’s bars and slushy machines,
the design is now real and detailed.
There are battling ideas of reality and illusion in Ugly Lies the Bone. There is a moment
when Jess absentmindedly suggests that paradise must have palm trees but it’s
pointed out that there are palm trees on every street in Florida. What, then,
is paradise? At another moment, Jess is disgusted by the idea of working in a
Pizza Hut because she ‘wants a real job’. It’s also contradicting when Jess
wants to build Titusville the way it used
to be in VR form. There is a growing sense that (hinted at in Devlin’s design)
the two worlds become blurred. However, no moment where reality is questioned
is more moving than when Jess’ mum, suffering from dementia and having not seen
her for years, instantly recognises her, not even blinking at the scars. It’s a
problematic moment, not least because Davis plays both her mum and the ‘Voice’.
Kate Fleetwood is intensely captivating as Jess, aided by very
detailed make up work. However, her performance is more than just her prosthetics.
Physically, the amount of energy and precision is staggering. From conveying Jess’
stiff joints and spasming muscles to her difficulty at sitting down and her
outbursts of anger, Fleetwood’s performance is all-consuming. Emotionally, she
also suggests the character’s suffocation, as well as her frustration and confusion
at how much her old life and home is disappearing.
There were bits over which I wasn’t quite sure. Short scenes moving
locations make for a structure which is episodic, almost fractured, giving it a
sharp pace. It also reflects the psychological effect of displacement. We’re hurtled
about in this setting. There are lots of things to look at, bits we recognise
along with bits which are stranger (again, harmonised in Devlin’s set), reflecting
how the setting is the same but also different for Jess as well. However, the
short scenes also make them feel underwritten and the technique that the last
line of each scene is loaded with a bigger meaning became a laboured.
Olivia Darnley is impressive as Jess’ sister/carer, Kacie. Kris
Marshall and Ralf Little also do excellent work. Marshall as Casey’s sap of a boyfriend,
living on disability benefits, has been dressed in flip flops and bright colours.
He looks like someone who might run the rollercoaster at a coastal theme park
in an episode of Scooby Doo, a mere skate board and a cry of ‘Spring Break!’
away from becoming a Florida stereotype. However, Marshall invests in him
something deeper and more dimensional.
Little, as Stevie, Jess’ old boyfriend, suggests a well-conveyed
haplessness, insisting that he once had top clearance in his admin job at NASA
but who is now resigned to wearing a hat with a springy space shuttle in his
job at the gas station/ convenience store. It’s interesting how he notices how
her eyes are still as charismatic as they used to be and sort of falls back in
love with her. But, is that real or is it merely nostalgia, an escape from his unhappy
marriage?
Actually, I think Marshall and Little are clever casting: the
former is in his early forties and the latter in his late thirties, but both look
younger and are mostly associated with younger and more comedic roles. Likewise, I got
the impression that Kelvin and Stevie were older than they looked and initially
acted.
Thinking about the casting even further, there is a sense
with the four main characters that they’re all clinging onto their youth but are
on the verge middle age. Memories of before Afghanistan pervade the play,
whether it was Jess working as a teacher or watching the space shuttle launches
from the roof. There’s a sense that these characters could have perhaps once existed
in a coming-of-age type play. There is a parallel here to how Florida’s space
coast was once vibrant and exciting but now almost extinct. There was an
article in the New Yorker last year about Atlanta, Georgia, having a similar
story with most of its once full casino complexes now empty. Overall though, Ugly Lies the Bone puts a female lead (Fleetwood)
and three key creatives (Ferrentino, Devlin and Rubasingham) centre stage and
the results with this production are very refreshing.
Ugly Lies the Bone plays at the National Theatre until
6th June.
Ralf Little and Kate Fleetwood. Credit: Mark Douet. |
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