Rules of attraction when you’re offline
MICHAEL MOFFATT SHOW OF THE WEEK
Beginning Gate Theatre HHHHH Until April 20
Iwish I’d met you online,’ says Danny to Laura. Presumably online is so much safer; like or don’t like, flick on to someone else; no unfortunate remark, no look or joke to be misinterpreted or regretted. Real relationships are full of pitfalls, too capable of exposing or leaving scars. And yet to shelter from embarrassment or commitment is to face a corrosive loneliness.
This is the essence of David Eldridge’s play, which brings it all together in Danny, aged 42, who lives with his mum, and
top management woman Laura, 38. It’s 3am and they’ve just met – the only ones remaining in her London apartment after her boozy house party. It’s a deadly serious, moving, and wonderfully funny play, driven by an exquisite script, two fine performances and meticulous direction.
Laura is attracted to him and starts into snakily restrained sexual overtures. Danny is immediately on the defensive. He’s evasive, obviously wary of some undefined relationship that could lead in undesirable directions. He’s been through all that before. The whole play is a ritual verbal and emotional joust between the two as they try to get to grips with each other mentally and physically, attempting to overcome the inhibitions that make a real relationship impossible. Her life, admits the flamboyant Laura, is an empty shell of activity.
Danny’s attempt to let music do some of the work, morphs into dance movements to the sound of Bros singing I Owe You Nothing, that allows him to gently shake off some of his reticence, and Laura explodes into a hilarious extempore dance of liberation that leaves him open-mouthed and even more confused.
There’s a superb combination between Marty Rea and the wonderful Eileen Walsh whose every gesture is a bargaining chip that ups the ante. Rea’s London accent caused some initial problems of clarity, but as he got into his stride, the character developed, while Walsh’s Laura gradually peeled away the layers under which the two of them are sheltering.
Marc Atkinson’s direction makes skilful use of strained silence and physical distance to raise the dramatic tension and to underline the gap and attraction between the characters.
Laura’s long speech near the end is not so much a wish list as a statement about life’s possibilities and the compelling need to find somewhere to begin again.