Another week, another fringe play with an absurdly long title. This week's proposition is: I'd Rather Goya Robbed Me Of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole. Which would be more than fair enough, if only we knew what Spanish writer Rodrigo García was so angry about in this surreal, raging and aggressively male monologue.
Steffan Rhodri, who takes the only option available to him and goes at this commendably full-pelt, plays an unnamed — García is patently way too furious to bother with anything as bourgeois as a name — 50-year-old Spanish man who decides to blow his €5000 of life-savings on a night of debauchery.
Why? As if there’s an explanation. Anyway, the plan is for this man and his unseen sons, aged 11 and six, to drink whisky, go whoring, hire a philosopher for an hour and then break into the Prado art gallery to spend the night looking at the Black Paintings of Goya. As you do.
Somewhere in the midst of all this flailing rage — and unpleasant misogyny — there’s a decent point struggling to emerge about a disenfranchised middle-aged man trapped in a spiritually and economically bankrupt society that values only financial worth.
To hide the fact that this point is not going to come out, however, director Jude Christian and designer Fly Davis throw a lot of design at the problem. The sons are represented by two live piglets, who seem somewhat distressed. Whether it’s at the quality of the writing or the fact that Rhodri fries bacon, it’s impossible to tell.
Until March 29 (020 7229 0706, gatetheatre.co.uk)
