It’s the people, places and things that can knock recovering addicts back. Those familiar contacts which can trigger a slide down the ladder. And that’s what makes recovery so difficult as funnily enough, they are quite difficult things to avoid.
In this intelligent, funny and electrifying play Duncan Macmillan takes us into the unfamiliar and neglected world of rehab. Going down with cold turkey and then being built back up again might not seem as exhilarating a ride as the highs that drink and drugs bring, but the kicks are real and the shot in the arm makes us sit up and take notice.
A great cast headed by Lisa Dwyer Hogg drag us into the unreality of life where the brain and body don’t function in a coherent way anymore. Hogg as Emma, or Sarah or Nina or whoever she says she is, catapults her whole being into the sometimes snide, often shallow, but always suffering alcoholic user loser that she has turned into. Her performance is powerful, very watchable and raw, but never completely dominates the show, and allows the other fine actors to reveal their stories.
The play is very much about honesty and the fact that Emma is an actress helps convey the message that we all play at pretence which can involve denial. Hilarity often breaks out during some of the tensest scenes and things never get preachy.
This Headlong/ National Theatre touring production hooks from the outset and flings us into a fast and noisy stage change courtesy of Bunny Christie’s kaleidoscopic set. This is Bunny Christie, the designer of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, so you know it’s going to be clever and imaginative. But the ingenuity of a two sided grid with audience front and back, projected screens and sliding entrances with beds and people emerging from them never overpowers and allows the story to become an exhilarating piece of theatre.
Co-directed by Jeremy Herrin and Holly Race Roughan, People Places and Things constantly surprises and mixes fantastically choreographed sequences such as the vision of a multitude of Emmas emerging from every angle with brutally honest tales of the cruelty that intoxication brings especially to those around addicts. .
The cast excel as an ensemble, with particular mention for Trevor Fox as the initially terrifying Paul whose demons metamorphose into a different kind of obsession. Ekow Quartey as Foster brings a gentle playfulness while Andrew Sheridan as Mark brilliantly conveys the sense that he knows when he’s being played for a fool by Emma, but wants her to succeed. Matilda Ziegler as the Doctor displays the cool detachment of the clinician who has seen it all before and knows that, however much of a process the road to recovery is, it is the only game in town.
People, Places and Things triumphs because it shows the roller coaster ride that is rehab can be ugly and that once an addict, always an addict. Go and see – it’s a rush. ★★★★★ Bryan Mason 26th October 2017
Photo credit: Johan Persson, 2017
