In Midnight Movie, surfing the net is not an unnecessary distraction from real life. Online existence here may be feverish and nocturnal but it is also a place of liberation from the ill or “glitching” body that is stuck in a bedroom, ridden by isolation and pain.
We are taken on a journey inside the internet by two avatars who act out scenes as multiple tabs are opened, chatrooms are visited and intimacies are formed in this virtual multiverse. Eve Leigh’s script is full of inventive paradoxes: not only does this disembodied space become a way of exploring embodiment and its limitations, but virtual existence is given many sensory dimensions, from the spoken word to British Sign Language, captions and layers of sound.
Signing is a central, lyrical part of Rachel Bagshaw’s production and the saturating effects of lights and sound swallow up the entire stage in some dazzling moments.
The script is spoken by Tom Penn and signed with great, expressive charisma by Nadia Nadarajah, whose movements occasionally melt into dance. Text is inscribed on the back wall alongside audio description, live drumming and a creepy electronic score so that the storytelling feels both multiple and physical. Online scenarios vary from scary to sexy; some grab us by the throat while others feel whimsical and sketch-like. By the end, it coalesces into a highly imaginative theatrical experience even if all the online flitting brings a degree of weariness, just as it does in life.
Despite its layers of stories and realities, the staging is anchored in our familiar physical world rather than a virtual one. The set is a slightly retro bedroom with a fish tank, a drum kit and a kitschy backdrop of palm trees and night sky. The avatars look like performers from a smoky jazz bar rather than virtual beings.
The idea of the ill body, and of being in the “wrong body”, are fascinating aspects which might have been even more developed: Penn’s avatar refers to an illness but there are relatively few details given so we remain emotionally distant to its points of pain.
Darker themes of illicit voyeurism and corporeal impermanence waver across some scenes, especially those containing digital hauntings, and the play gathers a thrilling, noirish quality. For the most part, Midnight Movie refrains from any final judgments on the darker aspects of the internet but it subtly, cleverly questions the idea that our online identities are lesser versions of ourselves.
At the Royal Court, London, until 21 December.
