THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Narcissist is a word that's bandied about too easily these days, usually referring to politicians people basically don't like. Celebrated American playwright Christopher Shinn's new play, which he's premiered at Chichester, focuses not on such a politician but rather on one of those political strategists or "comms gurus" they employ to help them come across as 'authentic' or 'sincere'. As George Burns once put it, "The key to acting is sincerity. If you can fake that you've got it made".
Shinn's incisive and inventive play provides a witty take on both the personal and the political and covers as much ground in two hours as would fill an 8 hour HBO version.
Jim, expertly played by Game of Thrones star Harry Lloyd is like one of those gunslingers of old, brought back to do one last job, this time to help a Senator with her Presidential bid. Claire Skinner basically gives us Senator Elizabeth Warren, down to blue bolero jacket and crisp trousers. Slender and pugnacious, she has brains and the charm and has mastered all the policy positions but, as Jim reminds her, that's not enough, as the electorate has switched off, smelling insincerity everywhere. Politicians like Trump, whose rise Jim's supposed to have foreseen, have mastered the art of weaponizing pessimism, and how do you counter that? So, utterly disillusioned with how big money has destroyed politics, he's walked away to a lucrative book deal, which he's working on with his novelist friend, Kara (Paksie Vernon).
It's all got the tart urgency of every political TV drama we've seen since The West Wing, but Shinn and director Josh Seymour have achieved something notably theatrical here, in that they've finally made the stage world acknowledge that all our lives are now totally fractured by smart phones. No matter how important the conversation it's interrupted equally by every other bit of our life, both serious and trivial. This needs to be onstage more if the modern world is to be represented.
The problem is that it isn't only the Senator that needs Jim, Kara is needling him to finish the book, and he's separated from his celebrity wife and begun a gay affair with a precocious young actor/waiter (Stuart Thompson). He's a socialist and fancies himself as a shrink saying things like - "Your cynicism is a depression you project".
Back home, his hapless brother Andrew (Simon Lennon) ends up in hospital from his opioid addiction and is under the thumb of a controlling and needy 'Gen Z' girlfriend, Cecily (Jenny Walser), who persecutes his befuddled mother, who houses them both, and is aggressively hustling to get her online fashion label off the ground. But, would someone in such a key role in US Presidential campaign even have the bandwidth for a family as intrusive as this? I doubt it, however it serves as a useful dramatic device to draw in the problems of the wider world.
Jasmine Swan's designs are crucial here in that for the many text or facetime messages she spotlights the nagging character in individual, raised, neon-framed niches, so they come across like irritating saints. The constant interruptions and the multi character feed into Jim's consciousness is artfully done and shows us just how far down the road to techno Armageddon we've strayed.
The play suffers from Aaron Sorkinitis, in that every character is uber articulate and fully self-aware all the time, having been therapied to near death. This misses out how most people are anything but articulate at times of crisis, enjoy bearing grudges, and don't put all their cards on the table. Still, this is like blaming the Senator for being too intelligent, and is a minor criticism when this play is rich with insight into modern politics, the communication game and family dynamics.
