Deposit (Hampstead Theatre, 3 June)

If Brecht teaches us anything, it's to feel sympathy for actors as people. And oh, the poor creatures on the Hampstead basement stage, made to do representative rhythmic gymnastics through this terrible, terrible play. If Aldi sold Shaw scripts, like by the pound, they'd read like this.

"Generation Rent, innit?" Like imagine a play based around that being written on a napkin, and you more-or-less have the idea here. In a move that would please a particular sort of Russian Formalist, this is the kind of play where no-one has a personality beyond their representative function to the plot, which is to say: two couples onstage, saving for--wait for it--the deposit on a mortgage. Between this and having my work visa renewed at My Country, I did feel very relevant this past week--and I watched both nearly in the fetal position. However, whatever force this might have had was blunted by the script. I suppose--if I were inclined to be charitable--I would say that some of these liabilities were the point: that the housing situation so compromises people to the point where they no longer have interests or recognizable humanity. And yet: humanity does rather poke through. Someone likes waffles; another, Pokemon Go. Of such things is recognizable humanity made. No-one is actually as dreary as the characters in this play are. And woe betide the problem playwright whose jokes fall flat--whose moments of levity clunk like horseshoes, amidst the general discussion of Fucked,  How We Are. There are the elements of a truly epic Grand Guignol script here--certainly, at least half of the characters were in desperate need of a disembowelling. But this was too close to a Shelter press release given a barely fictional gloss.

When I saw this, of a Saturday evening, I was the youngest person in the audience. The man directly in front of me seemed to be a property developer, recommending that his friends invest in property. On the way out, I heard some of the fiftysomethings say "Thank god we don't need to buy again." As an immersive theatrical effect, this was somehow more impressive than anything I've yet experienced: the fourth wall, right down! But as an index of typical London depressingness, this was typically depressing. Still, if we're all fucked, let's have some better plays.