Ross Willis makes a striking debut with this surreal, often raw two-hander. It’s a portrait of deprivation and the dead hand of bureaucracy, yet involves talking trees, a woodpecker who’s also a social worker, and a medic who rues not pursuing her dream of being a Meat Loaf impersonator.
Imaginatively and noisily staged by Lisa Spirling, it’s a fairy tale with bite, sinking its teeth into the frailties of the care system and the human cost of its limitations.
Sophie Melville’s A and Erin Doherty’s Z are twins, dressed in contrasting boiler-suits like the perky co-presenters of a children’s TV show. They’re born full of wonder, but any prospect of an innocent childhood soon vanishes. While irrepressible A finds herself being raised in a forest by a she-wolf, quick-witted Z is adopted by a “soggy” woman who spends most of her time languishing in the bath. Fortunately, Z is taken under the wing of a chemistry teacher who makes her feel she can “push back all the gravity in this world”.
Willis has an unusual way with words — playful, furious, streetwise, decadent. He also conjures some eye-popping moments: a supposedly judgmental audience member is forced to wear dark glasses, Z encounters a crazily competitive woman who likes to crush her own children’s teeth and snort them, and a charity worker stabs herself with a pen in order to remove her own kidney.
The performances bristle with feral energy, fitting the author’s prescription that “this play should not be polite”. At times there’s a surfeit of anarchic weirdness and verbal profusion, but Ross Willis is a fresh and fearless voice, clearly itching to test the boundaries of theatre.
Until April 13 (020 7978 7040, theatre503.com)
