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Extended Review – Spoiler Warning!
American Nightmare is one of the three plays in The Violence Series: ‘a trio of dystopian dramas set in a world that is familiar but on fire’. Produced by Cardiff’s pub theatre, The Other Room, the series is currently on its final leg of a tour across Wales. This instalment, written by Matthew Bulgo, sees two very different worlds collide as we follow two sets of people meeting for the first time, each in startlingly different circumstances, but both with difficult decisions to make. The choice between dying, surviving, or thriving, lies in the hands of each character: whether with a handshake or a clenched fist.
Already in place as the audience enter the auditorium are recruits Elwood and Daria (Gwydion Rhys and Lowri Izzard), lying on their single beds in a grey bunker somewhere in America. Director Sara Lloyd’s clever staging reinforces their position as trapped both physically (until the mysterious regime accepts or rejects them) and by circumstance (a daily ration is more appealing that starvation in the outside world). Rhys and Izzard never leave the stage, but freeze as the lights cut out and the doors to their quarters slide open to reveal Clara and Greg (Ruth Ollman and Christopher Gordon), dining in a New York City skyscraper. High above the carnage on the streets below, the two are engaged in a business meeting; as Clara puts it - ‘deals don’t get made between 9 and 5, deals get made between dinner and dessert’. The two narratives alternate equally, but each has a different time frame; Clara and Greg’s meeting takes places over the course of one evening; Elwood and Daria’s over several months.
In the bunker, Daria and Elwood are put through vigorous physical and mental training with chips in their wrists tracking their emotions and their test scores. At intervals, the pair is bombarded with video clips of The Program, who barks dogma and warns them that only the most capable will succeed. Richard Harrington plays the Big Brother figure. Despite being star of BBC’s Hinterland, and therefore supposedly comfortable in front of the camera, his performance, projected onto the back wall, is (no pun intended) rather flat. His American accent is questionable and he’s neither menacing nor particularly authoritarian. I’m not convinced these clips were completely needed as we can infer the intimidating nature of the regime by characters’ attitudes and their bleak environment; only the last clip provides necessary exposition and could perhaps have been told through a voice over, AI-style, keeping the regime’s sense of anonymity.
With Southern accents thicker than gravy and biscuits, Daria and Elwood, the ‘white trash’ pair, diverge dramatically with their smooth-talking, suited counterparts, highlighting the contrast between the under- and the elite class. Scene changes reinforce this jarring divide with a shit-yourself-loud score and video projection across the whole space depicting chaos contrasted with calm; fires, protests, a city skyline. Tic Ashfield’s sound design and Simon Clode’s video sequences work well together to create an atmosphere of distress. The images are general enough that with a few tweaks to the script and the accents, the play could be set in any first world country; the horror however, is not only the ubiquity, but also the fact that similar scenes have played out in our world already. The set is also slickly designed (Delyth Evansand) and could easily translate well to bigger theatres. It’s minimal too: in the bunker this reads as austere but in the restaurant, stylish and tasteful. Here, sipping cocktails in the luxurious dining room, Greg tries to understand more about the secretive, lucrative opportunity he is being offered. Clara easily deflects his inquiries with her flirting, dry wit and abrasiveness, leaving British Greg bumbling on the back foot. Ollman and Gordon do a class job of keeping the audience engaged while never leaving their seats, supported by Bulgo’s sharp, droll writing which expertly drip feeds us information.
Themes of power naturally pervade this dystopian drama and are explored in microcosm in the two scenes. In the bunker, though at first Elwood is smug at knowing more about the regime, the dynamics of power are soon shifted as Daria conforms to the system. Typical sexual politics in the play are reversed, too. When Daria gains the upper hand, by aggressively giving Elwood a hand, she manages to manipulate him into handing over pills he’s been using to top the leader board. Rather than developing a romantic or sexual relationship, the pair only lower their guard around each other. It’s this iota of trust that allows Daria, under the guise of helping Elwood relieve his frustration at his dropping scores, to take off his shirt to give him a shoulder massage. Vulnerable again but this time relaxed, Elwood opens up about his hope for the future – of working the land and building a house big enough for his whole family. This American Dream with a capital ‘D’, coupled with the deliberate physical positioning of both characters, is a clear reference to Of Mice and Men, and when the penny dropped, it had me open-mouthed, searching the set for the murder instrument. The room is so sterile, objects are not easily concealed – which is why it’s still a shock and a startling juxtaposition when Daria takes Elwood’s shirt she’s been folding carefully, almost tenderly, and strangles him with it. Fight director Kevin McCurdy does a stellar job of making this look realistic and brutal. Daria’s character arc is dramatic yet perfectly paced and by the end, everything makes sense; every seemingly insignificant piece of information foreshadows the conclusion as she dons a jumpsuit and takes her winning place as a mindless drone pilot.
In the restaurant, Clara dominates her relationship and she knows it. Talking is what she is employed to do and talking is what she does best. One seemingly random anecdote tells of how she once left a dog she’d made obedient by feeding, tied to a tree, only to return and discover it had eaten its own tail from hunger. Her story unsettles Greg and the allegory soon makes sense as Clara spells out the proposition he is being offered. With the help of Greg's construction company (and the underclass slaves who will do the dirty work), the pair can bomb the existing cities full of misery and chaos and rebuild shiny new ones. This exposition is a little too explanatory for an audience capable of reading between the lines. Without it however, it’s difficult to complete Greg’s arc of knowing the repercussions but ultimately accepting the offer anyway, in return for an extortionate sum of money. As Clara delivers the final line, 'Dessert?', the deal is made, and the grave fate of thousands is sealed, conflated in the lifeless body of Elwood, lying just centimetres from their feet.
American Nightmare is a character-driven dystopia with clever production design, fantastic central performances, and razor-sharp writing, delivering genuinely unexpected twists and surprising amounts of humour. Don’t be surprised if this play does a second tour. Charlie Brooker, I hope you’re taking notes.
American Nightmare concludes its tour tomorrow night at Pontio in Bangor.
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