Trash Cuisine at the Young Vic

Takes a deep breath...

So, before I get started here, there are a couple of things I should clear up before diving into the play. Trash Cuisine is written and performed by members of the Belarus Free Theatre. I urge you to check them out and look into the issues they attempt to address in their performances. These are clearly committed people, and the context in which they sometimes work makes them brave in a way that I hope I will never be called upon to understand. In this particular example, the key themes are the death penalty and torture, and the various countries in the world (including the UK) that have in the past and still do kill their own citizens by way of punishment for crimes real or imagined.

The conceit, if you like, is to present these atrocities - and I think this is a reasonable term - in the context of some form of galloping gourmet-style jaunt around the planet. This is done through the medium of a range of scenes (in some cases, perhaps "sketches" is a better way to describe them) highlighting various forms of abhorrent torture and murder, ranging from the Rwandan Genocide, to the British in Northern Ireland, to the execution of Vlad Kovalev in Minsk and so on.

My opinions on capital punishment and torture probably chime with the morality of the time in which I have been raised - in summary, they fall quite clearly and neatly in the "not cool" camp. These opinions ought not to be relevant to any review whatsoever, and yet they are. If I might explain...

I need to be clear with you about my opinions on the politics so I can also be clear and unambiguous about my opinions on the play. The politics are important context. It also means that having attempted to exhonorate myself from the accusations of being some kind of sociopath, and praised the morality and bravery of the company in general, I can say something like this without quite hating myself as much as I might otherwise have done: "This play does not hold together, for me, as a coherent piece of theatre".

Or perhaps more simply put: "I didn't get it".

The cookery show motif may be a good way to go about this, it may not. Either way, I don't feel they carried it off. A viewer might reasonably work on the assumption that the play is being performed to make them feel genuinely bloody angry about execution and torture, and disgusted at some of the more brutal aspects of humanity. So maybe they scored a point on the disgust front. I was disgusted - there. I was disgusted when I found it out takes three shots to kill by lethal injection. I was disgusted when I found out that death by electrocution involves upwards of two minutes of electricity with a 10 second break to see if you're dead yet. I was utterly revolted by the accounts of the Rwandan Genocide.

Was I angry? Possibly. It's hard to tell because I was also struggling with sheer bafflement. I was baffled about the dancing (yes, dancing). I was baffled about the use of flour, and the pattern they made on the floor with lentils (representing what, I cannot tell you), I was baffled about the decision to close the play by chopping onions (yes, onions) on stools. The Shakespeare monologues out of context; the sketch about how the French used to eat ortolans (by blinding them, fattening them and then drowning them); the pile of pineapples on the body of the victim of an execution; more bloody dancing. Call me a Philistine if you like, but in this case, as I have heard it eloquently put, the Emperor was naked.

I worry that there was too much appeal here to the "coolness" of the Young Vic audience. Their "trendiness" and, possibly most depressingly of all, their "middle-class-ness". I've seen plenty of innovative, creative and thought-provoking productions from the Young Vic. This, sadly, was a little too heavy on the art, and a little light on the narrative.

I saw this play the evening after having been to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park. Watching one play so soon after the other, I can't help thinking that Harper Lee's American classic might have a little more to say about corruption, persecution and ultimately execution than Trash Cuisine. Or perhaps, what it does say is clearer, more heartfelt and a little less pretentious.

I don't want to finish this piece on that note, however, so I will add that each seat in the theatre had on it a postcard with a pre-composed note to the President of the European Commission, and a flyer for the Free Belarus Now campaign. Whether or not I "got" the play, these causes seem worthy of time and attention.

http://www.freebelarusnow.org/

Public Enemy at the Young Vic

Set in an imagined 1970's Norwegian rural community, garishly coloured and re-worked for a 21st century audience, you'd be right not to expect a straight up and down Ibsen from the Young Vic. This is particularly true when the architect of this modernisation, David Harrower, is the same brain in the same head that brought you the Young Vic's previous little chunks of joy The Good Soul of Szechuan and The Government Inspector.

On the other hand, this is Ibsen we're talking about, so you can probably leave your incontinence knickers at home if you're worried about laughing too long or too hard.

Public Enemy was apparently written in response to some nasty types criticising his previous play Ghosts, and Ibsen is none too subtle about it. From one perspective, the early and later scenes of the play are just vehicles to give context to the scene in the hall in Horster's house, where Dr. Stockmann lets rip at petty local officialdom, the media, democracy and the ignorance of the general populace. This is the main set piece of the performance and delivered from in front of the curtain with most of the rest of the cast strategically placed within the audience. This is the scene from the play that I will remember, although I have no idea how much of it was Ibsen and how much Harrower. Either Ibsen was a visionary with a keen understanding of the balance between naivety and altruism, and a hatred of political short-termism, or Harrower is rather good at his job.

It's easy to pick out things to like about this performance. The ensemble cast are great (Niall Ashdown as Aslaksen is particularly worth a watch), the staging is quirky and fun, and more to the point the feeling in the room when you're watching it is a particular blend of amusement and edginess that makes the Young Vic a regular fixture for me. The fact that the audience seemed unsure how to react to Stockmann's diatribe was spot on.

Picking holes is a little harder perhaps, and much less fun. However, if I had to put on my grumpy face and opine I might say this: I felt like I'd seen this play before at the Young Vic - only done a little bit better. Again, the sheer joy that was The Government Inspector springs to mind, or the quirky, chaotic Three Sisters. If you're looking for politics with modern relevance, Wild Swans. But if you haven't seen those, and are a little bit less mental about going to the theatre than I am, then there is absolutely no reason why this play wouldn't be anything other than refreshing, thought-provoking and a good night out. For those of you who, like me, spend unhealthy amounts of time at the theatre, you can probably find a better show to watch for your money.

For the record, here's what a few other, better qualified, people thought:

Tim Auld at the Telegraph

Matt Trueman

Michael Billington at the Guardian