Writer: Zinnie Harris
Director: Jennifer Tang
As an island, we have always been fascinated by other islands that reflect our own microcosm. From The Tempest and Robinson Crusoe to Lord of the Flies and The Wickerman, island survival tells us what it means to be human. Further Than The Furtherest Thing is based on a real island, Tristan da Cuhna, which was cut off from the world during the war years. The story is compelling, but it gets lost on the hollowed-out space of the Young Vic.
At first Soutra Gilmour’s wide-eye of an amphitheatre looks spectacular, completely transforming the Young Vic’s space. However, only two of the four rows have backrests, punishing for those sitting in the first two rows for a play that lasts over two and half hours. Of course, Gilmour’s round circle neatly captures the shape of an island and the opening minutes are the play’s most dramatic as Ian William Galloway’s vibrant video design is projected onto the stage along with live singing, dry ice and, what appears to be, real fire.
But as the play continues, problems with the staging become more apparent. Surprisingly for a play in-the-round, the actors remain relatively still, offering up their backs to huge swathes of the audience and sometimes their voices get lost in the warehouse-like space. There is a revolving stage but it turns so slowly it may as well remain stationary. Zinnie Harris’s play requires intimacy but the set, sparse other than the ugly tables that are wheeled on for the second half, only seems to strand the actors on their own shores. How better this play may succeed in a small room above a pub where the audience, almost on stage themselves, feel complicit in the dreadful events that are to follow.
The play begins in 1961, although the dates are vague. Only the mention of the Queen in a hat tells us that the play is set after the Second World War. Francis has come back to the island from South Africa and he’s brought with him businessman Mr Hansen who’s eager to build a factory on the island, canning the plentiful crawfish. Francis’s aunt Mill is excited at the prospect and imagines herself working on the conveyor bet filling glass jars with the crustaceans. Her husband Bill is not as welcoming and is more interested in the hot red liquid that he can see forming in the mountains. It takes a while to realise that this glowing water is, in fact, volcanic lava.
When the construction of the factory is voted down by the islanders, Francis declares that he will return to the mainland with Mr Hansen. Not wanting him to go, his aunt and uncle, hatch up a devious plan involving the pregnant Rebecca that may persuade him to remain on the island.
Jennifer Tang’s direction is glacier-slow, but the acting is good, especially that of Jenna Russell who plays the prickly Mill. Her no-nonsense approach to life is married with a dangerous childlike gullibility. She could never adhere to rigid English rules. Russell also delights in the island’s idiosyncratic vernacular that places a H sound over words beginning with E. Instead of egg and English, it’s H’egg and H’English. The audience, however, is unsure whether it’s supposed to laugh at every one of these peculiar pronunciations.
Cyril Nri is her husband Bill, forever distracted by the past and by the portentous movement of the water. Despite Nri’s best efforts, there’s little more to Bill apart from this sense of being eternally haunted. The pair is joined by Archie Madekwe who plays the conflicted Archie, Gerald Kyd who gives the capitalist Hansen the vestiges of a heart and Kirsty Rider who plays the broken Rebecca. Walking grandly through them all is singer Shapla Salique whose vocals add some much-needed drama to the proceedings.
Harris’s play, first performed in 1999, is often proclaimed a ‘modern classic’ but it’s had to fathom why in this production. Tang has taken the play’s title too literally and everything – emotions included – seem very far away. This play needs to be closer to the closest thing if it is to be successful.
Runs until 29 April 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Too Far
