Writer: Nina Atesh
Director: Chloe Cattin
The early 1920s have the potential to be a fertile ground for drama. After the horror of the Great War, an age of prosperity seemed to be dawning, so those still living with the psychological aftereffects of warfare could butt against people who just want to look forward and have fun.
There’s an element of that in new play Horne’s Descent, in which the eponymous Peter Horne, an ex-solider now newly ordained into the Church of England, is invited to the soirée of a London socialite, Etta Florence (Cici Clarke). The invitation has come via Horne’s childhood friend Albie (Magnus Gordon), an alcoholic toff who has designs on Etta’s niece.
A shame, then, that what transpires is scuppered from the off. Nina Atesh’s dialogue takes what seems like an age to go anywhere, leaving us in the company of two men talking about irrelevances. Alexander Hackett’s Horne is supposedly haunted by his wartime experience, but you’d never know it. Neither his stance – a most unsoldierly drop of a shoulder, hand on hip – nor his delivery seems to align with what little Atesh gives us in terms of the character’s motivations. Matters aren’t helped by Chloe Cattin’s directorial style, which seems more interested in having Horne and Albie in endless motion than bringing out the necessary backstory to their characters. That we hear of the class discrepancies between the two comes through solely from some incredibly on-the-nose dialogue.
The introduction of Clarke’s Etta and Bethany Slater as her niece, Mary, doesn’t help matters. Atesh shoehorns in some conversations about Christianity versus atheism and occultism, the latter two often seeming to be mixed up in Etta’s clumsy probing of Horne’s faith. There rarely feels to be any connection between actor and role, although Gordon has fun with Albie’s dipsomaniac excesses, and Slater occasionally imbues Mary with a much-needed air of flirtatious insouciance.
In a play that aims to depict an ordained man’s unravelling relationship with his faith, one needs to feel a sense of the stakes involved. Dialogue, direction, and acting all combine to obscure Horne’s character so much that we never really get to understand what he is at risk of losing.
Without that, there is little of Horne’s descent, or of Horne’s Descent, with which one can feel remotely engaged.
Continues until 13 April 2024
1 Comment
I’d like to start by saying that I don’t know Nina Atesh, or any of the people involved in this project. I see a lot of fringe theatre – some good, some bad. I am also a writer and performer on the fringe too, and find it exciting to be a part of a community that does not produce work to get bums on seats, but is art for art’s sake.
The above review seems oddly savage, as though the reviewer was actively looking for things to dislike. I found Horne’s Descent to be a thoroughly engaging play, with excellent performances.
Nina Atesh has a really great grasp on dialogue, and is able to write characters with nuance and contradictions, like all people have. To focus on one part of the above review, I found that the ‘stance (of Horne) – a most unsoldierly drop of a shoulder, hand on hip’ was not an error in performance and direction, but more a clear statement to the fact that the majority of those sent to war were not ‘soldiers’, but ordinary men flung in to brutal and harrowing circumstances.
The performances and direction were bold and assured, and the costume and set design were fantastic, especially for a fringe theatre pub production.
I recommend anyone give this play a go. It has so much depth and colour, and it is exciting to see a production of this calibre on the fringe. ***** from me!