PULLING THE WOOL
Most dystopian visions set themselves fairly far sooner or later. Misha Levkov, nonetheless, retains us in 2025, specifying that productions ought to all the time be set a few years forward of actual time, and the setting is London – Kentish City. This does preserve it recognizable and away from sci-fi fantasy, nevertheless it additionally calls for that Britain has gone downhill dramatically quick. Laura and Anna, half-sisters, and their father Harry reside in “The Emergency”, with borders closed and immigration surging. A world drought and sudden short-term native powers are severely rationing water (whereas holding lots for officers, we collect ) and cracking down on asylum seekers with a battery of biometric monitoring and brutal authoritarianism.
Tony Bell, tripling as an Immigration officer, councillor and predatory property agent taking their flat off them, does a wonderful job however is obtainable fairly cartoonish traces, representing each Nazified jobsworth the north-London liberal may detest. “No place to run, nowhere to cover. Vigilance. Complete eyes and ears and world positioning” he says. And. “…I just like the obligation chart, the workplace caff and the khaki. The spiff. The tech. Additionally – why not say it? – I just like the chase…it will get very primal in a short time”.
Towards him are pitted three girls. Carlie Diamond is admirable in a headlong skilled debut as Laura, afire with idealism concerning the historic Jewish concept of constructing an “Eruv”.It’s an historic Judaic customized, initially declaring a neighbourhood as exempt from the strict Sabbath interdict on working or travelling. Laura sees it as a technique to create, by winding threads of yarn between properties and gardens, a kind of sanctuary. Not only for Jews however for everybody. Her sister Anna Is a little bit of a Buddhist, recent from a stint at a monastery however disillusioned concerning the exploitation of pilgrims there. Lastly Laura persuades her that their eruv is not going to be a ghetto however inclusive, loving, supportive to all -“It may be pretty inside an online”. There may be a variety of overwritten gush about this, and although it’s all dealt with by Diamond with nice talent and likeability it turns into more and more irritating. Particularly as she appears to have, or need, no precise work past winding thread around the neighbourhood. Dad just isn’t impressed both – “daydreams are as unhealthy as nightmares”
This fey defiant impracticality is, it’s admitted, mainly a part of the lady’s grief for her mom. Who was the rescuer of the third, extra attention-grabbing and better-written girl, Hala the Syrian asylum seeker (Suzanne Ahmed, spectacular). I might have accomplished with much more from her, not least as a result of she is unconvinced for many of the play by the threading protest. She additionally raises essentially the most attention-grabbing concepts within the play, questions on anticipated gratitude, the distinction between hosts and pals, and what occurs “when asylum seekers need greater than we are going to give”.
My sense of frustration eased a bit within the second half, largely as a result of – with a small-space class typically discovered within the Jermyn – director Vicky Moran and Ingrid Hu the designer get them climbing, threading, creating the online in actuality – with intelligent projection to magnify it into a giant mad internet by which the depraved Immigration Officer may be trapped and defeated. That not less than is correctly theatrical, although the overwrought traces proceed to return at you “Is {that a} yellow moon past the clouds or the white solar…Wanting down on merry Eruv jugglers who preserve the celebs of their sky..”.
Its coronary heart is in the proper place, although the very fact is signposted so manifestly that it dangers a perverse response (like being somewhat sorry for the officialdom represented by Tony Bell). I want I used to be moved and impressed by it, however wasn’t.
Jermynstreettheatre.co.uk. To 4 Feb
Score two.
