Theatre Review: Closer

How many actors does it take to change a light bulb? Seventeen. One to change the bulb and sixteen to say: "Pft. I could have done that better."

Closer is one of those plays that actors looove to talk about doing. It's cobbled together out of scenes virtually tailor-made for acting-class work, one-on-one 10 minute capsules of relationship politics brimming with smooth and witty dialogue, thus if you've ever spent time within any actor's training facility, you've been exposed to at least a couple of scenes, and probably taken quite a shine to it. Plus it's was made into a very successful film with some very, very good actors with careers that we'd kill for. So when a group of locals get it together to actually mount the thing, they've got a guaranteed audience of secretly jealous and very critical actors to count on. Smart marketing tactic, and a ballsy choice to throw it in front of a theatre full of people with their own identification with the material. And yes, that would include me...

There's an dichotomy inherent in Patrick Marber's most popular play. It's not just about relationships, it's about obsessive relationships. And it's set in Jolly Olde, where the public display of emotion is just not cricket, mate, and so the dialogue on the page is very well-mannered and full of dry wit. It has a structure built of formality that nevertheless contains the messiest of human emotions; lust, infidelity, betrayal, fury. The time line stretches over several years, during which the two men and two women of the cast trade each other off as sex partners in every combination except for girl-girl, so as to make it seem as if there is no other sexy-time options available to them in the entire city of London. These characters are consumed with one another, and they represent the dark potential of desire and deception in all of us. Each scene in the play shows us the keynote turning points in the inter-relationships of these people, all full of illicit seductions and confessions, and as such they need to reflect us at our messiest and most vulnerable. Closer Equity Co-op's version isn't messy at all, in fact, it's quite a neat and tidy piece of staging.

That's not to say these guys are doing bad work. Quite the contrary, what I saw was a group of very watchable, very proficient TV/film actors doing some nice, simple, well-timed performances with the technical proficiency required of industry professionals. What I didn't see was much emotional risk being taken, so I didn't see the mess of human baggage unpacked that I was hoping for. I wanted the air in the Havana to stink of sex and uncorked repression, instead of incessantly smoked cigarettes, which were constantly being lit to indicate, I can only suppose, varying states of moral decay. Guys, we believe you're in London when you're in the back of a Cuban restaurant on Commercial Drive, we'll believe you're smoking if you pretend to. It's the emotions that we want to be real, not the props. I wanted to leave queasy from examining my own moral susceptibilities, as weird as that may sound. But that's what the theatre's for, I think, and for me, that's entertainment, mate.

Photo courtesy of Closer Equity Co-op and Titania Productions