Affluenza with Noah Schnapp at Riverside Studios – review

I’ll say this for Andy Sandberg’s new drama, making its world premiere at Riverside Studios to kick off a five-play season – it’s anything but predictable. In fact, I can genuinely say it goes on one of the most head-scratchingly befuddling narrative trajectories I’ve ever seen on stage.

The action starts off in the plush family home of a wealthy American couple whose teenage son Dylan (Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp) has killed multiple people after being drunk behind the wheel of his father’s car. We know Dylan doesn’t really care about this, because he casually swigs wine from the bottle in front of hotshot lawyer Brad (Rupert Young), who subsequently comes up with a cunning defence, inspired by his psychiatrist wife (Wallis Currie-Wood) – to argue Dylan has “Affluenza”, in other words he can’t be held responsible for his amoral, privileged upbringing.

So we settle in for what looks like becoming a passably interesting legal drama, but the action then takes the first of several bizarre jump cuts by missing out the trial entirely to instead look at the impact on the victims, including everyman father Charles (Donald Sage Mackay) whose daughter has been paralysed in the crash and won’t accept a pay-off. Ok, we think, is this in fact going to be about the quest for justice in uber-capitalist America? Nope. Because when we come back after the interval, we find ourselves watching the now grown-up Dylan starring in his own reality TV series alongside his dreadful girlfriend (Currie-Wood) and troubled teenage son (Schnapp again).

Quite what Sandberg is trying to say, beyond the astoundingly original observation that money and fame can be corrosive, is anyone’s guess. There are hints of some interesting ideas, particularly in the early scenes when he takes aim at a culture that can litigate its way beyond any moral compass, but the frankly ludicrous sequencing of events thereafter undermines any attempt to develop a coherent theme. Characters are introduced and then disappear without trace, the dialogue is riddled with cliché, and attempts to inject levity (notably a protracted bit of lip-synching from Mackay’s stoner cameraman in act two) are neither funny nor tonally appropriate given the premise.

The cast – which also includes Juliet Cowan as both a grieving mother and cynical TV director (the doublings are highly incongruous), and Strictly‘s Janette Manrara in a range of peripheral supporting roles – do their best with what they’re given.

Schnapp is the main draw but doesn’t have much to do in either of his thinly-sketched roles beyond swear and strop around, while Young is convincing as the lawyer but woefully miscast as the adult Noah (for one thing, he’s a good foot taller than his teenage self). The fact the run has already extended suggests the Stranger Things effect will guarantee this an audience, but we can only hope this misfire is not a sign of things to come for the rest of Sandberg’s season.