Reader Reviews
The Overwhelming (Cottesloe (National Theatre), West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | After Blackbird by the aptly-named David Harrower, now comes The Overwhelming; not just appropriately titled, but also a contender for best new play of the year. Although the appalling genocide in Rwanda is probably too vast a subject for a drama, JT Rogers enables us to feel the advancing horror by focussing on a few individuals, particularly three naive Americans "in a country you do not know, without a language to understand it". The play does not try to provide easy answers and suggests that there are faults on all sides but the overwhelming (sic) feeling is of gathering unease and tension, with dreadful parallels to the Nazi holocaust. It all builds to one of the most genuinely terrifying climaxes to a stage production I have ever seen. It is no reflection on a magnificent and thought-provoking play, or a superb ensemble, when I say that applause at the end did not feel entirely appropriate. - 62.6.139.13) | 09 Aug 06 |
| The writing is flabby and underpowered and the direction is confusing. The acting is very uneven. The story only really comes to life in the last thirty minutes - before that the play feels more like an illustrated lecture than a drama. The many many short scenes seem to betray an origin as a film script. This might've made a good ninety minute piece - at three hours with interval it feels way, way over-extended. - 62.252.0.10) | 19 Jul 06 |
| Extremely powerful drama of a very difficult subject - thought provoking and harrowing at times, but very moving.A must see. - 213.122.106.114) | 03 Jun 06 |
| What's clever about this play is that it manages to objectively tell you so much about a tragic world event through the lives of one expatriate family; it uses theatre to inform and iluminate events that are little understood by most of us, whilst at the same time being good theatre. I didn't find it as harrowing as I was expecting, which is maybe why I left the theatre feeling informed and thoughtful. We should be thankful that theatre can still present issues like these and thank you to OOJ and the RNT for doing so. - 86.130.201.183) | 27 May 06 |
| This play is not entertaining as such; rather, it is a sensitive and truly believable production that does its subject matter justice by its exploration of events. The transposal of issues into a more personal human context allows several points of view to be understood by the audience, with the relationships between characters giving the play a gritty reality. The play owed much of its success to the extremely strong cast. In particular, Danny Sapani was outstanding as the intense government official, with other notable performances from Andrew Garfield as the unsuspecting son and Babou Ceesay as his new companion. Their performances really brought the words to life, and for not one minute did we remember that we were actually in rainy England instead of the Rwanda that was created for us. We felt a little let down by the writing of J.T. Rogers in that we felt that character relationships could have been developed more as at times the action focused more on the situation, although this may be down to artistic choice. However, we felt the constructed build up of tension was exemplary. The production of the play was impressive. The set was incredibly versatile, helping with the pace of the piece and the atmosphere of a claustrophobic Rwanda. It was not showy, but simple and effective, allowing the audience to focus on the unfolding situation and characters. Max Stafford-Clark has once again, in his own undeiable way, brought a key issue to the forefront of theatre. He suceeds not just because of the authenticity of the production but because the audience themselves are made to feel a part of what is happening. We were left reflecting on not only the horror of events but also the idea that such situations are invariably complex that solutions, if they are there, are nigh impossible to find. “The Overwhelming” lived up to its name, presenting us with an uncomfortable theme, but conveying it with such relevance to our modern society. We would recommend this play to just about anybody. There is nothing pretentious or false but real lives presented in a truly understandable way. - 217.40.187.105) | 17 May 06 |
| A fascinating and FACTUAL play that intrigued half of the audience,that were under 20,and disturbed the remaining 50%,over 50 and middle class,who did not want to believe what they were being told. One criticism:no way were Africans taken from the"great lakes" to be enslaved in the Americas. A mind blowing scene shews a young white American referring to Rwandans as "black" and then being horrified when his Rwandan friend called his mother,a negro,"black" and not "afro-american" What does that say about today's political/social thinking in the west. Take your kids. - 195.93.21.10) | 11 May 06 |
