Sometimes good intentions are not enough. Clearly this play by Sarah Woods, jointly commissioned by Cardboard Citizens and the RSC, is intended as an attack on the moral myopia of our consumerist culture. But, although the play deploys every trick in the book, it fails to shock us into new awareness.
Woods's tactic is constantly to upend our expectations. She starts with a suburban couple in a nervous tizzy before a Sunday-lunch party: the wife is having an affaire with one of the guests and the husband has inadvertently killed a neighbour's cat. But, having started in Ayckbourn territory, Woods shifts into Pirandellian mode with an actor apparently breaking down in mid-story and stalking out. After that we get a cod gameshow based on ethical problems, sportive animals inviting audience-participation, the body of a would-be migrant dropping from the flies and a return to the chaos of the Sunday lunch.
The play's message is unmistakeable: that bourgeois society is self-preoccupied and shockingly indifferent both to global issues and the source of its own comforts. But, while the sentiments are impeccable, there is something stridently obvious about the means of expression. The moral dilemmas faced by the gameshow contestants, such as whether one would save a loved one or a stranger from drowning, are school-book stuff. And, although the sudden descent of a dead migrant into a domestic kitchen is well done, the biffing and bashing of his corpse is crude. Only when a connection is made between the surplus maize of a deported Albanian and the Sunday beef does the play begin to impinge on our conscience.
What Woods' play lacks is the theatrical logic of Caryl Churchill's Blue Heart or the genuine surreality of Thornton Wilder's The Skin Of Our Teeth. But, although the bundle of tricks cannot disguise the familiarity of the message, Adrian Jackson's production has a surface liveliness.
Rory MacGregor and Karen Paullada lend the warring suburban protagonists a suitable frenzy. Gus Brown conveys all the oleaginous smarm of a bouncy gameshow host. And Patrick Onione as the disintegrating neighbour makes you wonder if you are watching a genuine breakdown.
In the end, however, one applauds the attempt rather than the deed. It is good to see Cardboard Citizens, who do vital work with the homeless, asylum-seekers and refugees, attaching themselves to a living writer. But Woods' play tells us too much we already know and lacks the discipline to reinvigorate its liberal message. I am all for new forms but a traditional realistic play like The Voysey Inheritance leaves one far more shaken and stirred than all Woods's self-conscious wackiness.
· Until May 6. Box office: 0870 429 6883.
