Tonight I went to see
Caryl Churchill's new play, "Drunk Enough To Say I Love You".
Unfortunately I found it a largely disappointing experience. It's about a love affair between two men, one English (Jack) and one American (Sam) and to begin with looks like it's going to be about the older English man leaving his wife and family to be with his younger lover. Even at this point it's fairly clear that the dramatist is satirising the political relationship between these two countries. But then for the rest of the play the two men simply openly discuss the foreign policies of their countries in weird disjointed sentences, foregoing any allegory and just pretty much bluntly stating that America is evil and Britain is complicit in all this. Which just felt a bit simplistic and obvious. And though I enjoyed the smart performances by the actors who managed to make all this fliratatious I would have preferred to have seen the point made by examining this sexual relationship, rather than being bludgeoned over the head with all the blunt statements about the bad things the West has done to the world.
And I think we have done bad things to the world, but I think there is more to it than simple selfishness or economics or evil.
Mainly though I became annoyed with the style of the piece where the characters would get half way through each statement and then stop, leaving you to fill in the gaps. To begin with I did this by playing a kind of "Have I Got News For You" style game where I imagined amusing and wrong words, but in the end I was just irritated. I was very tempted to get up and shout, "Oh for fuck's sake, just finish one sentence. That's all I ask. Just one of them!"
Obviously I have had enough experience of hecklers to not want to dick up someone else's performance and none of this was the actors' fault, but as the piece dragged on (impressive for a play that didn't even make it to 45 minutes) the temptation became greater and greater.
Imagine what a great Warming Up it would make. The actors being thrown, having to decide whether to ignore or berate me. The audience probably cross and belligerent, though surely a proportion of them would agree with me. Maybe some of them might even applaud. Only one way to find out and make this an entertaining enough story to merit inculsion in this four year odyssey - I had to do it.
I didn't of course. I just sat in my seat thinking about my own script and how I could improve it, which is exactly what happened when I went to see
Metamorphosis so maybe going to see pretentious theatre that I don't like is the best way for me to get my own work done.
Like Metamorphosis this play has had some good reviews, so I might well be wrong again. But maybe British theatre needs a small boy (or childish) man to get up and shout out that the Emperor has no clothes on again.
