Emotional debt in Faces in the Crowd

Marriage in trouble: Joanne (Amanda Drew) and Dave (Con O’Neill) prowl like caged animals about their minimalist flat
10 April 2012

It’s not a perfect match, but Faces in the Crowd is the nearest theatre has yet come to a credit crunch play. There’s talk of excessive buying on plastic and debt consolidation plans and, in the middle of one particularly impassioned speech, we half expect Robert Peston to leap out and start expostulating. Nonetheless, the kind of debt that really concerns playwright Leo Butler is emotional, the sort that can’t be whittled away via minimum monthly repayments.

Thanks to William Fricker and Rae Smith’s scintillating design, we look down at the action from on high, as if at a pit at the zoo. It’s actually a sleek, minimalist London flat but that doesn’t stop Joanne (Amanda Drew) and Dave (Con O’Neill) from prowling like caged wild animals. Butler drip-feeds the information but gradually the facts emerge: the couple were married, but 10 years ago Dave escaped from Sheffield to London, cutting himself off from Joanne and his family. Now she’s found him again and it’s payback time.

Butler worries at some weighty themes in his spare script, covering not only our have-now-pay-later culture but also the failure of feminist rhetoric when countered with the brutal facts of female biology. Frustratingly, though, his theoretical arguments are not pushed far enough, and nor does he engage us sufficiently in the couple’s back-story for these 100 minutes to break free entirely from the smack of dramatic contrivance.

Director Clare Lizzimore isn’t going to give up easily, however. She offers a thrillingly no-holds-barred production, powered by commendably raw performances from Drew and O’Neill, who are required to spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time in graphic, fruitless attempts at lovemaking. From our lofty position, we feel like voyeurs. An intriguing evening.
Until 8 November (020 7565 5000).

Faces In The Crowd
Jerwood Theatre At The Royal Court
Sloane Square, SW1W 8AS

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