16 February – 18 March
Playwright Ryan Craig’s well-observed and tightly written play follows the implosion of a couple going in opposite directions, engulfed by ideological fault lines as they struggle against the potential pitfalls of cancel culture and gender politics that shadow their professional and private lives.
Within a confining bare-walled set with subtle hints of ancient academia around the perimeter, we follow the protagonists, philosophy professor Theodore played by TV favourite (The Bill, Love Actually) Kris Marshall and his assistant, later wife and faculty boss Charlotte (Eve Ponsonby), over the course of ten years of their relationship before the wheels start coming off.
Charlotte’s career picks up speed as she is suddenly fast-tracked over her husband to become head of faculty while Theodore finds himself over-looked by the powers that be. Now Charlotte not only has to deal with her partner’s injured pride, but with his clumsily woke-blind utterances online, which threaten to blow his career apart. Theodore is subjected to a mandatory awareness course which he rails against – refusing to state his personal pronouns at the start. He, the older, white male, is suddenly finding the demographics have changed, and he no longer enjoys the wind at his back. Charlotte is already several steps ahead and further ambitious projects are beckoning.
For the evening to succeed, the chemistry between Marshall and Ponsonby had to be ‘on it’. It was. The early slow burn tension and sometimes humorous exchanges between them over the attention-starved behaviour of their children were very well realised before they gradually arrive at a loaded silence when Charlotte’s career boost finally throws the couple into visceral meltdown. “We stopped fucking when I got this job” Charlotte aims at her visibly crumbling partner, while retreating around her desk to avoid potential physical abuse – a pulsating climax to a very real sense of breakdown between them.
Using a minimum of props – a table and chairs on an otherwise empty stage, and quickly changing clothes in a dimly-lit space, Ponsonby’s morph into the sharply dressed head of faculty role was a stand-out, while Marshall fashioned the passed-over academic to appear evermore hunch-shouldered and unkempt, lashing out at the ‘Thought Police’ threatening his ability to express himself.
Directed with noticeable focus on body language by Tony Award-winning director (La Cage aux Folles) Terry Johnson, Charlotte and Theodore will undoubtedly find resonances with many – just listening to last night’s audience reaction was proof enough of that. With the debate about Roald Dahl’s texts being ‘airbrushed’ for new readers appearing in the press and online today, this play’s focus on the changing landscape of the politically correct seems very timely. That it will provoke discussion is without doubt.
★★★★☆ Simon Bishop, 24th February, 2023
Photo credit: Alistair Muir
