Writer and Director: Benedict Esdale
Chess is a game that requires skill and knowledge while snakes and ladders is a game of chance. They are very different games, but regardless of the board games the couple plays in Benedict Esdale’s new show, the outcome is the same. Each contest ends in a shouting match in which Sarah and Jack argue the same things over and over again.
By the end of Snakes and Ladders is a Losing Game we learn little new about the squabbling ex-lovers who meet once a week, under the instructions of Sarah’s therapist, to play board games. They commence with a jigsaw of a polar bear but Sarah wants to begin with the middle whereas Jack, in the traditional manner, wants to start with the edges. However, when they play chess, Sarah sticks doggedly to the rules and Jack, who she calls a “square, square boy”, quickly finds himself facing checkmate.
They argue about the rules of the games they play, but they also bicker about Alice, an unseen character who we learn little about. Sarah mentions that Alice is her lesbian lover, but there’s a feeling that Sarah is suffering from Dissociative Identity Order and that Alice is her other personality. This seems more likely when we hear that Jack also plays board games with Alice, after meeting her one day in town. Sarah wears a different top for each game, while Jack wears the same clothes throughout.
Drawn to each other, Sarah and Jack refrain from sex, although at one point they kiss. Sarah doesn’t want to be unfaithful to Alice; perhaps Jack desists because of Sarah’s fragile mental health. But it’s increasingly hard to care as Esdale gives us such little information about the couple and even less about the shadowy presence of Alice. The expected denouement never arrives.
The acting by Casey Taylor-Williams as Sarah and River Norris as Jack initially offers some interest, but Sarah is a very difficult person to like and Jack’s occasional violent outbursts mean that we’re not rooting for him either. And nothing much happens and the fragmented conversations about the North/South divide and the cost of buying a house provide no new insights.
The two actors spend most of the time sitting on beanbags towards the front of the stage as they play their games and this may cause issues with sightlines in a busy auditorium. The action could be pushed back a few metres or the actors could be stood up playing the games on a high table if they want to be visible to the whole of the audience.
Esdale has structured a play that is a puzzle itself, but with no instruction manual working out the moves is just too baffling.
Runs until 7 August 2024
Camden Fringe runs until 25 August 2024
