Writer: Scott McClanahan
Adaptor and Director: Oliver Reese
Oliver Reese, director of the Berliner Ensemble, became captivated by Scott McClanahan’s dizzying combination of sadness and comedy in his semi-autobiographical novel, The Sarah Book (2015). Reese’s adaptation as a one-man show, Sarah, now playing at the Coronet Theatre, is mesmerising. His vision of the original work’s theatrical qualities is brought to life by Jonathan Slinger’s heart-stopping performance as Scott.
Slinger captures Scott’s mercurial moods – at one moment he’s a stand-up comic, recreating funny snatches of marital dialogue with a closely held microphone, the next he’s stumbling around his apartment, searching the fridge for more booze. Early on, he’s is driving his car, way over the speed limit, celebrating his belief that he’s the ‘best drunk driver in the world’. But then it dawns on him that his two tiny children are somehow in the back. It’s no surprise, therefore, to learn that the long-suffering Sarah has thrown him out. He tries briefly living in his car in a Walmart parking lot. That too becomes part of his capricious imaginative world. As shoppers troop in, Walmart becomes a giant temple. ‘This is my kingdom!’ he cries out in delight.
In his loneliness and defensive humour, Scott is like an adult version of Holden Caulfield. Like Salinger’s creation, the magic is in the words, and what lifts McClanahan’s writing far above the average misery memoir is Sarah’s sheer poetry. It’s not so much Scott’s English teaching job which inspires him, but his own fizzing creativity. Fried chicken wings (delightfully impersonated by Slinger) start to talk to him. But asked the future of mankind, the chatty appendages reply darkly ‘Pain’. McClanahan is unsparing of Scott’s faults. He’s ridiculously paranoid about his ex-wife taking a new lover and is shockingly negligent of his children when he’s supposedly taking care of them. But Slinger gives his character an underlying vulnerability – he’s often padding around six-packless in his underpants – which evokes pity rather than judgment.
Memories of his past surface randomly, and it is only gradually that Scott reveals glimpses of his once-happy marriage. A love of comic absurdity clearly bound the pair. What begin as comic episodes become freighted with emotion as Scott remembers what he’s lost. We find ourselves invested in the tale of Mr King, the elderly one-eyed pug dog they take in. Mr King turns out to be completely blind and has a range of repellent skin diseases. But they come to love him. Scott imagines what Mr King is thinking – Slinger briefly becomes the ancient dog – and we love him too. When it comes to the inevitable death of Mr King, Slinger’s expressive face shows real heart-break.
Mr King’s story is only one of a flood of compelling tragi-comic stories, subtly complemented by Jörg Gollash’s original music, that make up this highly original, endlessly entertaining piece of theatre.
Runs until 17 December 2022
