The many faces of pain. Elayne (Nadine Marshall) is brilliantly realised. Photograph by Stephen Cummiskey
Play: Nut
Theatre: The Shed @ the National Theatre
Playwright: debbie tucker green
Review by Joy Francis
A new play by debbie tucker green always arouses great expectation. Nut, her latest production (which she also directs), delivers her customary beautiful lyricism and gritty realism, but falls short of the mark.
Elayne, played brilliantly by Nadine Marshall, doesn’t like to be bothered – by anyone. She lives alone with a broken door bell and keeps lists – of everything. But her desire for peace and isolation isn’t respected as her mouthy friend Aimee (the ever reliable Sophie Stanton) competes and bickers with Elayne over whose funeral will be the best.
“They’d have to shift my service to a bigger venue, have your security explaining to my people a bigger venue’s necessary cos there’d be so many people turning up…” boasts Aimee. “Least I’d know the people I’d be inviting,” Elayne responds. An element of danger pervades Aimee’s barbed words and mind games as she encourages Elayne to burn herself with cigarette ash.
Another opinionated friend Devon (an effortless Anthony Welsh) is full of banter, swagger and critique. He too draws attention to Elayne’s flaws and shortcomings, particularly the meaning behind her redundant door bell, a sign that she doesn’t welcome company and aims to confuse.
Devon’s confident mood changes when a boy Trey (a convincing Tobi Adetunji) signals his arrival through a haunting melody. Devon, clearly threatened, acts as if he doesn’t exist. Each friend poses a threat to the other’s influence over Elayne and how she sees herself. You are left wondering if these ‘friends’ are real or if they only exist inside Elayne’s troubled head.
Meanwhile Elayne’s sister, referred to as ex-wife (played with intensity by Sharlene Whyte), and her ex-husband (Gershwyn Eustache Jr) compete over their 11 year old daughter Maya and who deserves the best parent award. “I do it, you play it,” claims the ex-wife. Their negative projections of each other clash in heated words and cigarette smoke against a tangled undercurrent of tainted love.
Elayne relationship with her sister also isn’t pretty. She struts around Elayne like prey – undermining, blaming and bullying. Elayne looks vulnerable, her naked arms spotted with unhealed cigarette burns. Her sister remains unmoved, blaming Elayne for her marriage breakdown. Her fear of Elayne’s mental ill health is palpable. “I’m nothing like you,” she spits. Elayne’s desire to be close is ignored.
Despite the emotionally charged vibe and sometimes brutal language, the narrative between the sisters by the play’s end feels directionless. Elayne’s identity and mental illness, and her sister’s hinted at depression, suggest a deeper back story. Yet when they come together the emotional tautness and complexity dissipates. Elayne’s fire is gone. Her sister’s motivation isn’t clear. As a result, the ending feels incomplete and unfinished.
debbie tucker green’s direction, like the set, is sparse, naturalistic and provocative. She brings the best out of the actors, most of whom she has worked with before. There is a flow in the language and movement as people make tea, make a mess, clear up and dominate the space. Lisa Marie Hall’s set design intrigues with furniture suspended in space, slightly out of reach. The performances are stellar by actors who try to elevate tucker green’s words in all their poetic repetition and prickly humour.
This playwright tries to say a lot to say in 70 minutes about who you allow to shape your identity and the impact and stigma of mental illness. Despite the fact that not everything is said, or is even clear, Nut is still an experience worth having.
Nut is at The Shed at the National Theatre until 5 December 2013.