This 80-minute two-hander is a portrait of a relationship that’s essentially a transaction. Leila, a coolly impressive yet often insufferable “climate change celebrity”, meets John, a barman 20 years her junior, at a conference. There’s chemistry between them, and he settles into a new role as her companion and lover as she travels the world giving talks about corporate social responsibility.
Writer Rose Lewenstein has a sharp eye for hypocrisy and the kinky appeal of emotional power games. But she’s also interested in how those games can mirror the larger dramas of political and environmental collapse. Even as Leila preaches the importance of sustainability, she takes macabre pleasure in her own wealth and profligacy, and the play, with its jagged chronology and snappy scenes, feels like a series of riffs on different senses of the word “consumption”.
Charlotte Randle doesn’t hold back in probing every corner of Leila’s abusive nature, while also suggesting that, for all her predatory qualities, she’s vulnerable. As John, Mike Noble has the right mix of openness, incredulity and half-suppressed rage. They’re damaged people, forever teetering on the brink of violence or disgust.
Chelsea Walker’s production is tightly focused and heightens echoes of two modern classics — Nick Payne’s time-bending Constellations and Sarah Kane’s explosive Blasted. But the play strains to juggle as many topical ideas as possible. Though genuinely claustrophobic, it’s weakened by some heavy-handed symbolism and an unsatisfying haziness about details.
Until March 2 (020 8940 3633, orangetreetheatre.co.uk)
