Theatre: The Antipodes
Dorfman, National Theatre, London SE1 (020-7452 3000). Until 23 November Running time: 2hrs
★★★
“Yes, the world is still awful,” said Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out. “But on the plus side, the National Theatre is currently averaging one new Annie Baker play per year.” Baker, the US playwright who previously won acclaim for The Flick and John, is back on the South Bank with her “utterly, gloriously out there” play The Antipodes, first seen in New York in 2017. Around an enormous oval table sit eight people, a mix of Brits and Americans plus an Irish PA. “And they are… well, what are they doing?” Charged with coming up with a gripping story, they seem to be locked in some kind of endless brainstorming session. But why exactly? Are they writing a TV show? Trying to start a cult? Build a post-apocalyptic civilisation? Is this real? Are they dead? Divine? In this brilliant, and at times hilarious, play, which “crams in whole worlds”, we are never sure.
A “plotless play about plot” might sound frustrating, said Sarah Hemming in the FT, but that is “partly the point of this superb, ingenious, elusive piece”. On one level, “we could still just be in a particularly purgatorial creative meeting”. But soon you begin to notice details. The room has no windows and one entrance, through which a narcissistic boss, Sandy (the excellent Conleth Hill) arrives to deliver missives from superiors, and through which faltering team members disappear. There are clear echoes here of both Greek drama and Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.
“A video link-up with an unseen godlike authority flickers inconclusively.” And as their questions become more frantic, the team begins to unravel. What counts as a story? Why do we need them? Can any story be original, and who controls the ones we absorb?
The problem with all this ruminating about the nature of storytelling, said Susannah Clapp in The Observer, is that it’s wearily familiar: it “has become everyone’s subject everywhere and all the time”. In fact, it’s so overdone it “is now barely a topic”, but rather “the element in which we all swim” – infinitely expandable yet with ever-diminishing artistic returns. Although there are a raft of superbly detailed performances to enjoy, said Michael Billington in The Guardian, this still “feels like a thesis-drama” rather than a compelling play. At first it “fascinates”. Ultimately, it fails to grip.