Reviews West End & Central Published 24 May 2011

The Acid Test

Royal Court, Jerwood Upstairs ⋄ 13th May - 11th June 2011

Well observed if slightly flat second outing.

Tracey Sinclair

A splendid ear for dialogue. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Award-winning young playwright Anya Reiss, whose first play was the sharply observed Spur of the Moment, returns to the Royal Court with The Acid Test, but while she retains her splendid ear for dialogue, this sophomore outing proves slightly disappointing.

Dana, Ruth and Jess are young women in their 20s who share a flat: it’s Friday night and the girls are on a mission to drink away their problems. Ruth has just been dumped, beautiful and self-professed “shallow” blonde Dana is stressing over whether to sleep with her boss, and Jess is reluctantly playing host to her dad for the night, as he flees romantic troubles of his own.

It’s a promising set up, with all the ingredients for a killer cocktail, but Reiss and director Simon Godwin fluff the mix. The performances for the main part are very entertaining, and Reiss does indeed have a rare gift for writing great throwaway lines, so there are plenty of laughs. But it all feels strangely lacking. There is too much of a reliance on stereotypes, with everyone off-stage being a mere trope, whether it’s Ruth’s comedy socialist vegetarian boyfriend Twix (he’s funny cos he cares!) or Dana’s mean, rich tosser of a boss.

Admittedly there would always be a limit to how engaged I could be with a play that could have accurately been subtitled “a posh girl’s problems”, but the result is at times staggeringly unsympathetic. It’s not helped by the one-note, almost robotically disengaged performance of Lydia Wilson as Jess, possibly alluding to some long hidden childhood trauma but coming across too often as merely blank, her sardonic streak emerging far too late in proceedings. That her closed-down performance is meant to signify some emotional repression is hinted at by the declaration she doesn’t have sex and a possibly-a-tad-overfriendly kiss from her father (although it’s never entirely clear whether her issue with her father is that he pays her too much attention or too little). Instead she comes across as detached and whiny, so when the pack eventually turns on her, you find you are squarely on their side. Vanessa Kirby as Dana and Phoebe Fox as Ruth fare better – though occasionally struggling to be convincingly drunk, they do at least feel like real people with genuine emotions, albeit real people having a slightly unreal evening.

Stage stalwart Denis Lawson excels at the embarrassing dad routine, complete with an amusing “embarrassing dad dancing” moment, but he lacks depth in the heavier emotional scenes, and his presence feels slightly wasted. He is the gun on the wall that is never fired; typically, Jess finds her dad excruciating while the others find him charming, and the intoxicated flirting adds a dangerous and unsettling edge to the dynamic that is left under-explored. His final, frustrated ‘you’re not special’ outburst to the girls feels like too little, too late because the playwright has spent considerable time trying to convince us that they are. There is, however, something wonderfully deflating about his own denouement; his marital dramas pragmatically resolved in the practicalities of dealing with a leaky roof at home, romantic illusion sidelined by the reality of a mortgage and the compromises needed to maintain a 26 year marriage.

All of which is an enormous shame, as the play has so much else to commend it. It rattles along for a breathless 90 minutes; the cast, for the most part, are likeable and believable, and Reiss’ sparkling but earthy dialogue is capable of lifting even the most mundane exchange. Paul Wills’ design – a typically cluttered female flat and its environs extending out beyond the stage, so that you have to pass through the outer stairwell and inner hallway to enter the living room – is also fantastic, putting you in the heart of the action even before you arrive, a wonderfully clever and almost interactive set.

But The Acid Test is let down by the slightness of its story and the lightness of its characterisation. For all the (many) laughs and the great lines, this play is saying little, even if it says it rather well.

Advertisement


Tracey Sinclair

Tracey Sinclair is a freelance editor and writer, a published author and performed playwright. She writes for a number of print and online magazines and most recently has focused on the Dark Dates series of books, including A Vampire in Edinburgh. You can follow her on Twitter under the profoundly misleading name @thriftygal

The Acid Test Show Info


Directed by Simon Godwin

Written by Anya Reiss

Cast includes Phoebe Fox, Vanessa Kirby, Denis Lawson, Lydia Wilson

Link http://royalcourttheatre.com/

Running Time 1 hr 30 mins (no interval)

Advertisement


the
Exeunt
newsletter


Enter your email address below to get an occasional email with Exeunt updates and featured articles.


Advertisement