In the Net – Jermyn Street Theatre, London

Writer: Misha Levkov

Director: Vicky Moran

There is one marvellous idea at the heart of Misha Levkov’s play opening at the Jermyn Street Theatre, but otherwise his story makes little sense. Set a couple of years into the future, two sisters create a new way of looking at the world but the allegory is pushed well beyond its limit.

After the death of her mother, an event that we are reminded of many, many times, Laura wants to construct an Eruv in her neighbourhood of Kentish Town, a borough particularly hit by drought and entangled in petty bureaucracy in 2025. An Eruv is a way in which Jewish people can avoid the prohibitions that occur on the Shabbat. If faced with an emergency Jewish people can go to the shops to buy food or drive a car by following the Eruv, an area delineated by wire or rope that hangs from trees, lampposts and door frames.

Laura believes that if she could construct an Eruv outside the house she shares with her sister, her father and Syrian refugee Hala, they could somehow stop the end of the world or at least make space and time to find a solution to slow down the global crisis. It’s a neat concept, and Hala begins to build her own Arabic Eruv that allows her to connect to home and her family that still live there.

However, this good idea is bogged down by some awful dialogue where people talk in riddles, meaningless aphorisms (“you have to see them and see through them”) and words plundered from an imaginary thesaurus (philootering) rather than taken from real life. Worse are the colloquialisms that Levkov makes up; one person tells another “I’m red pissed off with you”. Perhaps these are attempts at poetry, but such phrases are more likely to inspire laughter than admiration for a wordsmith’s talent. Uncomfortably straddling a Kafkaesque battle against officialdom and an environmental call to arms, In the Net fails at both.

In an impressive stage debut, Carlie Diamond passionately portrays Laura’s earnestness and inexperience in how the world woks. Unfortunately, the other cast members have tougher roles to play, especially Tony Bell who has to play every cardboard from town councillor to immigration officer. Thankfully, Suzanne Ahmet brings some very wry humour to her character Hala who is struggling to stay legally in England. As Laura’s sister Anna who has been “to monastery”, whatever that means, Anya Murphy does well to channel a healing figure, but, as the sisters’ father, Hywel Simons has little to get his teeth into and his character could easily be excised from the play.

Ingrid Hu’s expansive set of windows and oversized barbed wire means that the actors have little space left on stage and director Vicky Moran is forced to have some actors play their scenes from the audience’s seating. And when the sisters finally begin to weave their Eruv, crisscrossing the stage with yarn, it’s an accident waiting to happen.

Runs until 4 February 2023