Not a good start as I broke the unwritten role of theatre-going, arriving late. To be honest it wasn't my fault as I arrived in plenty of time but found the Old Vic Tunnels almost impossible to locate ( even a local taxi driver was no help). I had actually given up hope of reaching the venue but I hate being beaten and gave the less than entrancing area one last circuit.
Completely by luck I stumbled upon the box office and some helpful young staff helped me to negotiate the dark underground complex to find a seat after missing the opening fifteen minutes.
My first impressions weren' t favourable. Crammed into narrow squeaky seats while trains noisily and regularly hurtled by overhead distracted me from events on stage. Obviously missing the start of a new play on opening night doesn't make the plot easy to follow. I was plunged straight into a foul-mouthed boxer's rant after his mother's will asked him to find his father he thought was dead and a brother he didn't know he had.
Next it was a monologue about polygram mathematics before we were in a flash-back about a doomed love story. Gradually all these disparate details came together and we were drawn into a riveting world of bewildered siblings trying to understand why their distant mother had gone silent for the last five years of her life. This led us into a traumatic war, unnamed but probably in Lebanon in the 1970's.
This harrowing drama worked thanks to the vital inter-action between playwright, actors, director and vitally in this case, the space. The claustrophobic, eerie ,unexpectedly noisy, rumbling, crumbling and drippy surroundings hauntingly created the unsettling Middle-Eastern atmosphere that the main elements of Wajdi Mouawad's piece invoked.
Ultimately, a highly recommended theatrical experience, but make sure you set off with plenty ot time and good instructions of how to find it.
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