Bull, Young Vic's Maria - theatre review

Mike Bartlett’s play takes a sharp look three ambitious workers vying to avoid redundancy in a competitive workplace
Jockeying for position: Thomas (Sam Troughton) and Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura) need to impress their boss, Carter (Picture: Alastair Muir)
©Alastair Muir
Henry Hitchings17 February 2015

This is a short and very sharp look at the combative rituals, degrading attitudes and political mind games that pollute many parts of modern corporate culture. The title of Mike Bartlett’s play is intended to conjure up an image of a bullring, an arena where artistry and gore blend together. But it also makes one think of the word "bully" and prompts thoughts about another kind of "bull", the opaque gibberish that pervades office life.

Bartlett pictures three ambitious workers vying to avoid redundancy. As they wait for the man they need to impress, Neil Stuke’s arrogant yet weaselly Carter, they trade jibes and threats. Performing like preening toreros, elegant Isobel and confident Tony exploit the insecurities of their stressed-out colleague, Thomas. Are they playing with him or being sadistic? Do they even know the difference? At first it looks as though Thomas, for all his anxiety, can give as good as he gets. And until a fairly late stage in this 55-minute piece we’re still wondering if he may in fact have an ace up his sleeve.

The contest is absorbing, nasty and at times sourly amusing. The audience sits or stands on all four sides of Soutra Gilmour’s sparse set (in which a water cooler looms ominously large). As we observe other people’s shocked, bewildered or amused reactions, we can’t help reflecting on what it means to be a spectator.

We feel complicit in the savagery Bartlett depicts, and intriguingly it’s noticeable that while some regard the taunting of Thomas as obscene, others seem to savour it and side with his tormenters.

Clare Lizzimore’s production is taut and rivetingly performed. Adam James is suavely unpleasant as Tony, delighting in his gift for telling plausible lies. Eleanor Matsuura has a brittle poise as Isobel. But it is Sam Troughton who makes the deepest impression. An underrated actor, he here does a stunning job of portraying Thomas’s journey from diffidence and defensiveness via panic and paralysis to flailing insanity.

Until February 14 (020 7922 2922, youngvic.org)

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