The prospect of John Godber becoming an intimate Chekovian naturalist would once have seemed as likely as Mike Tyson turning to embroidery. But Hull Truck's 30th anniversary production is a complex fabric of memory and loss woven from minutely observed, lyrically expressed detail.
Godber's anti-realistic early plays relied on pumped-up physical aggression to propel them through the deficiencies of their texts, but Our House sees his conversion to naturalism complete. Now, if he wants to portray a blade of grass, he plants a real lawn.
In fact Godber and his ingenious designer, Pip Leckenby, have gone considerably further and constructed an entire back garden in an empty warehouse next to the theatre. The council house that widowed miner's wife May must leave after 40 years is depicted both inside and out - an obvious parallel for which would seem to be Ayckbourn's House and Garden. But not only is the grass real, so are the emotions and associations that are surging through May's mind as she prepares to leave her beloved home.
There's always been a lyrical vein bubbling away beneath Godber's writing, but this is the first time it's burst so freely to the surface. We find May obsessively strimming her lawn, even as the removal men are packing her possessions. It sounds like a cue for easy nostalgia, but Judith Barker's imperious performance invests May with the dignity of a west Yorkshire Madame Ranyevskaya, contemplating the loss of her council-built cherry orchard.
Abandoning the biff-bang-wallop mode of dialogue, Godber reveals himself as an excellent manipulator of structure. The play delves seamlessly into May's stock of memories, bringing vignettes of her past life into present reality. This requires the cast to play versions of their earlier selves, a challenge to which they all rise magnificently.
More importantly, the passage of time gives the play an impressive social dimension. We see how Margaret Thatcher gave May the chance to buy her own home, then took away the means to pay for it. Her lawn is the last remaining symbol of pride in an estate that has long since degenerated into lethargy and disorder.
But times change and people move on - not least Godber. He's put away his boxing gloves and taken up a needle.
Until July 28. Box office: 01482 323638
Hull Truck Theatre
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