Director: Charlotte Peters
Writer: Marcus Brigstocke
The Red examines a man’s relationship with alcohol as he confronts the death of his father. Written by comedian Marcus Brigstocke, the play joins Benedict (played by Sam Alexander) on the day of his father’s funeral. He heads to the family wine cellar, holding a letter from his father. John (Bruce Alexander) has left behind a handsome wine collection. His son surveys the vintages of “varying quality”; boxes of Taittinger waiting for a happier moment.
As he reads the letter, his father appears in the cellar – years younger, freshly retired. Benedict’s father asks just one thing of him. John indicates a bottle of Chateau LaFite, 1978. The year of Benedict’s birth. John wants Benedict to drink the wine, “the red”. Benedict has been sober for 25 years.
The Red started out as a play on BBC Radio 4, and it is the rhythms of the dialogue that really stand out. Father and son playfully spar and joust; great one-liners slip between the bigger moments almost unacknowledged. Brigstocke’s script is clear and effortless; the relationship between the two characters is evident in the way they bat words back and forth. Communication – at least on a superficial level – was never the problem.
For a play so concentrated on the nuance of words, it is the silences where the real drama happens. Benedict contemplates the bottle, then the glass. The tension builds, as we wonder if he will take a sip of wine. Brigstocke uses his first-hand experience of alcoholism and recovery to make it clear that Benedict is sizing up not just the immediate temptation, but the probabilities if he does / does not take a drink. They are mathematically laid out, including the unnerving possibility that one drink will unhinge the carefully-constructed life Benedict has built for himself.
Brigstocke doesn’t shy away from the assumptions we have about alcoholism and addiction. The Red may lure us into a cosy middle-class world of wine cellars and Waitrose apple juice, but Brigstocke’s examination of the nature of addiction, with its absolutes and contradictions, is bold and unflinching. Benedict starts drinking at 12, in rehab by 17 – the cost to him as a young man is devastating. But as an adult, he complains to his father about feeling left out – missing the ritual more than the alcohol itself. Will one drink really matter? It is this ambiguity that becomes the play’s defining feature.
Brigstocke’s play centres around the familial bond, and what happens once it is broken. Grief is barely articulated, but its presence here is tangible. The casting of Bruce and Sam Alexander is inspired; their chemistry would be almost impossible to recreate with another pairing. Their intimacy makes the play’s closing moments all the more poignant.
The Red pulls away from any sort of resolution, but the play is richer for it. At times darkly comic, The Red also makes room for lightness. The balance achieved by Brigstocke is impressive: writing about recovery, sobriety and the days in-between, with humour and compassion.
Available here until 16 June 2022
