Writer: David Ireland
Director: Finn Den Herzog
The Fifth Step, David Ireland’s exhilarating two-hander about alcoholism, masculinity and meeting Jesus in the guise of a Willem Defoe lookalike, transfers to @sohoplace following its premiere last summer at Dundee Rep. Reworked for its London debut, Ireland’s play is a taut 90-minute powerplay between two vulnerable men who meet in Alcoholics Anonymous. This dark comedy plays with boundaries not only between two semi-strangers but also with the audience as the line between recovery and manipulation begins to blur.
New to the AA programme, Luka is straining to control his hyper-addictive personality when he meets the calm and long-time sober James, who soon becomes his sponsor. With no subject off-limits, James tries to guide his charge towards greater moderation in all his behaviours, but as the months wear on becomes more involved in Luka’s life while the younger man struggles to accept the confinement of the AA steps.
Ireland’s play is a study of co-dependence in which control of the conversation starts to shift as the story unfolds, questioning the motives of both men as well as the rigidity of externally imposed one-size-fits-all programmes like AA to provide universal solutions to complex, individual problems. The scenario starts out well, laced with Ireland’s trademark bleak humour, as the two men meet semi-regularly with Luka sharing his compulsion issues, his need for sex and physical activity to replace the drinking, while James provides wise counsel and supportive advice.
And the play naturally focuses on Luka in the first half; a young man who reveals a childhood experience of domestic violence, who has become a nervy adult, uncomfortable in his own skin and barely able to contain his interior life. Jack Lowden’s portrayal squirms with energy, continually hopping about, shaking limbs and unable to settle as though Luka’s endless interior torment is trying to escape through his skin. And Luka is a mass of contradictions with an expert knowledge of film, beloved of horror, action and extreme violence on screen, yet finding a Christian calm that doesn’t stop him having an affair with a married woman. Although James dismisses his poor education, he uses words like “ubiquitous,” “bereft”, and “ecumenical” with ease. This hypersexualised, aggressive, lost man is ultimately incredibly vulnerable, and Lowden’s skilful performance is consuming.
Yet some way into the play, the dynamic shifts and the more restrained, gentlemanly James comes slowly into view. Initially, a passive figure as played by Martin Freeman, a judgement about Luka’s choices starts to enter their interactions, changing the supportive partnership of sponsor and recoveree to something much more controlling. Freeman’s James seems to need Luka to be the only confidant he has and becomes suspicious, even jealous of other outlets, like the church, that the young man is looking to. As The Fifth Step unfolds, James’s motives, his own levels of aggression and his active manipulation reconfigure his place in the drama – a tonal shift that Freeman carefully controls.
Finn Den Hertzog’s production was originally conceived in-the-round and has lost none of its visual impact in the transition from a fully staged, proscenium production in Scotland to Milla Clarke’s simpler design as presented here at @sohoplace. The revised text is punchier and still uncomfortably funny, although some of the meatiness of the original finale is lost, replacing it with a Beckettian tethering of two troubled men to a relationship neither can escape. In a process designed to remove surface projections, neither Luka nor James are the men they appear to be, and no one is more surprised than they are.
Runs until 26 July 2025
