Killing us softly… Snowflakes, Park Theatre

Snowflakes is perhaps not the first play to use the idea of murder as an entertainment but it’s probably ahead of the game in following social media to its natural conclusion in this Age of Rage and our instant hot, takes of hate. Ever tried to establish a middle ground with someone you disagree with on Twitter, it’s almost impossible whether the subject is films, soccer or even something serious. Wrongdoers are a matter of opinion and not established facts because, Amber, Johnny not only has alternative facts but a social marketing budget of millions.

Snowflakes is funny, frightening and highly engaging, even more so than gazing at Twitter, Insta and Tik Tok for an hour and a half, which I’ve seen someone attempt in the front row of the Donmar until the performers intervened. There’s none of that in the packed house tonight because not only are the actors armed, they’re also killing us softly with their words like John Denver after a very bad experience at Centre Parks, of which more later…

Robert Boulton’s play has already been Offie-Nominated and you can understand why, it’s an audacious debut which dares to tackle its subject matter in a complex way with the debate largely mirrored by the trial by social media jury that is the centrepiece. For every attempt to trump the appeal of hyper-normalised misinformation there’s a response that points the finger at all of us leaving the question of how this will all stop especially for the generations now raised on the internet.

Boulton also takes the lead as Marcus, lead executioner of a start-up that specialises in capturing and interrogating individuals who may or may not have done something wrong but who having already been found guilty in the eyes of public opinion, now have to hope for the slim chance of talking their way out of being sentenced to death by an online audience with itchy trigger fingers. He got his big break after a notorious slaughter at Centre Parks which brought admiration and instant psychopathic stardom.

Louise Hoare and Robert Boulton (All photos from Jennifer Evans)

Along with rising star Sarah (Louise Hoare), Marcus captures writer and opinion maker Tony (Henry Davis) in a hotel room after he has just woken from a drunken night’s infidelity. Tony has been accused of sexual assault and whilst no charges have been brought and he continually denies it, he will have to mount a defence if he is to win over the already converted… who else would watch such a show.

It's Sarah’s first time and she’s inscrutably concerned about the details, much to Marcus’ disgust she hasn’t even decided what weapon she’ll use when push comes to slaughter. Louise Hoare presents Sarah almost as our witness to this extraordinary circus, she wants to make a difference but feels in neutral with a seeming objectivity which annoys Marcus. Boulton plays his man as almost likeable, he’s thoroughly persuaded of the importance and validity of his job and is far smarter than he lets on.

With Tony mostly unconscious for the first parts of the play the two characters feel each other out, Marcus ready to kill at any point and Sarah perhaps not fully reconciled to everything she’s going to have to do. They rouse Tony from his drugged stupor and the real debate begins as the camera is set up and his guilt or otherwise will be decided not so much by his honesty as his ability to appear convincing on screen.

Props to Henry Davis for his skill at feigning unconsciousness not just as we entered the theatre but also after being knocked out. His Tony is too clever for his own good and yet we are torn between his testimony and refusal to play the game and Marcus’ bloodied cynicism; he’s heard it all before and believes nothing.

Henry Davis and Louise Hoare (photos from Jennifer Evans)

But no one escapes the inquisition and all three will have to confront their own truth in a startlingly vivid final half. It’s a visceral treat in the close quarters intimacy of the Park with Mike Cottrell’s direction using every inch of the performance space as the characters move in relation to each other, the audience and our confused sympathies… there is no fourth wall left by the end.

There’s superb stage design from Alys Whitehead with a sparse set utilising Jonathan Chan’s lighting to shift focus and dynamics as the tension ebbs and flows. There’s also the most chilling of stage scraps, expertly directed by Bethan Clark, that had us shifting uncomfortably in our seats: this is not ambient box-ticking theatre, they mean it and it’s going to hurt.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** We didn’t need a Twitter poll to decide on the play’s fate at the end as the ovation proved. This is not a play you’ll forget in a hurry especially as you turn on your mobile on the way home and it turns on you, the blue glow making you see red yet again. As Tony suggests it’s not about the politics anymore it’s about the personal and your very identity is under attack.

Snowflakes plays at the Park Theatre until 6th May 2023 full details are on their website, another fabulous show at one of the very finest independent theatres in London.

The ties that liberate… In the Net (2023), Jermyn Street Theatre, The Promise Season

Listen… We know we’re irritating, which is half the point. But not the main thing… An Eruv no one’s seen before… You think it’s insolent and flip. What if it has to be that way to open your eyes?

I have to mention the lighting design because as this play reaches its surreal conclusion, Jonathan Chan’s lighting mixes with multiple coloured strands of thread to create the impression that we’re all suspended high above ground fighting alongside the three women in this play to maintain the higher ground and a unity of purpose that transcends the lines that normally have us bound. Maybe it was the interval can of pale ale, but it was a lofty feeling indeed and fully matched the elevated poetic prose that infuses Misha Levkov’s first play.

Kicking of the year for Jermyn Street’s Promise Season, In the Net is wordy, erudite and quite hard to pin down until the closing. It’s a play grounded in the seeming inevitability of a near future in which the horrific rhetoric of the current Government who talk of swarms of refugees and controlling our borders in order to prevent an invasion. Wars driven by a shifting world order, contested energy resources and an accelerating climate catastrophe, could within the space of two years leave us in the same position as those in this play… 

Levkov’s London is sweltering under an unprecedented heat with water rationing par for the course as an increasingly authoritarian state regulates daily life in 2025. We find two half-sisters, the older Anna (Anya Murphy), fresh from a Buddhist retreat – going back to the World - already accepting beyond her years, and her younger sibling, Laura (Carlie Diamond, surprisingly in only her first professional role) who is forthright, restless and angry. Her biological mother… their mother, has just died and Laura is externalising her response. Their father, Harry, aka Papa (Hywell Simons) is confused by his daughters and intent on an escape fantasy involving Eastbourne; whilst the women want to confront reality in their own way. 

Anya Murphy and Carlie Diamond (All photography by Steve Gregson)

Their mother helped to rescue a Syrian refugee, Hala (Suzanne Ahmet) who holds a highly intelligent mirror up to this mix of heartfelt but slightly unworldly North London sensibilities. She grounds the play, her lived experience far beyond the well-intentioned family, her teenage son left behind and forces of the Immigration services probing for any reason to restrict her movement. Tony Bell plays the sinister Immigration Officer with escalating menace, his unusual vocabulary belying the delight with which he bullies and threatens… every authoritarian state needs men like him. Mt Bell is also the bumbling, Councillor (Acting Deputy Chair), seemingly good humoured but stickler for the cruelty of rules.

Whilst the Officer is concerned with immigration, the Councillor is just obsessed with regulation and Laura’s plan to establish and area of peaceful co-operation, a Jewish Eruv, a sanctuary demarcated by a network of coloured threads bound from the highest branches of the trees in their garden across the whole neighbourhood, under which everyone will be free to do what they need to help those within*. Laura takes her idea to the local council were other jews object to this ancient idea, possibly concerned about the impact on their reputation at this delicate time. 

It is an idea that is wistful and Laura is indulged and gently challenged by bother Anna and Hala, the latter seeing a lot of herself in the younger woman even as she relates much better to her sister. Laura takes offence when Hala and her Muslim friends start to string out their own Eruv in solidarity; like the child she can still be Laura cannot accept this bending of the strict rules of the Eruv and yet, as with so many situations, the women seem able to reach an almost unspoken agreement and even without specific words being used their communication transcends the situation. 

This is true of the whole narrative, as all the men come and go, threaten, misunderstand, try to reason and yet, in the end, the three will act as one, connected to the higher emotional environment within the net. Even Papa Harry doesn’t get it, perhaps he’s too used to masking his fears through actions and decision making. 

Anya Murphy and Hywell Simons (Photography by Steve Gregson)

You’re the best loved, dead-tired practical father. Who spawned Eruv children who can’t stop now. But practical’s not enough. It doesn’t catch the vision… 

The vision provided by this play is truly a promising one and In the Net is a philosophical triumph, forcing its audience to engage with the triumvirate in ways they wouldn’t have expected during the last Teams meeting of the day. Vicky Moran directs her players very well, and they move with emotional precision around the fixed space of the JST, ultimately flowing in gentle co-ordination across the upside of the thread, moving with each other as if the threads were hardly there. So powerful and so puzzling… but also funny, delicate and quietly terrifying. There’s a future here.

The cast are assured and energetic, none more so that Carlie Diamond on her debut and her forthright delivery eats through a wordy script as naturally as breathing, her words absorbed by Anya Murphy, the two presenting as not just half sisters but whole ones too. Suzanne Ahmet also does well as the play's most grounded and likeable character, refusing well-intentioned help as she tries to forge a new legitimacy in this hostile environment. 

Props to the movement director Nadia Sohawon, as well as the set and costume design of Ingrid Hu and Daniel Denton’s projection work in support of the aforementioned Jonathan Chan’s lighting. Combined with Matt Eaton’s sound, you are transported and I hadn’t expected to be so caught up… climbing the stairs back onto the streets with strings of thought drifting behind me. 

And all this on a long working Tuesday… ****

Suzanne Ahmet and Tony Bell (Photography by Steve Gregson)

In the Net runs until 4th February and is well worth your time, a promising new playwright with something spirited to say and, as I travel home, I know I’ll be thinking about this for days.

Full details and booking at the JST website.

 

*Wikiparently an Eruv “is a ritual halakhic enclosure made for the purpose of allowing activities which are normally prohibited on Shabbat, specifically: carrying objects from a private domain to a semi-public domain, and transporting objects four cubits or more within a semi-public domain.”