Reviews

Enlightenment

7 October 2010

Tennis balls bounce, projected on the curved wall of the bleakly stylish room in Lia and Nick’s home. The balls are a symbol – insistent but providing necessary cohesion – in Shelagh Stephenson’s new psychological thriller. But any genre term is inadequate to describe this ambitious piece, expressing Western fear of a poor, threatening and less predictable world beyond familiar comforts, global interconnectedness and the nature of identity.

Adam, a gap-year student, is missing, possibly blown up in a Jakarta terrorist attack. His parents, unable to complete the story of what happened to him, are trapped in an agonising moment. His mother, Lia (Julie Graham), idealises him, polishing what narrative she has and consulting a medium for more information, however spurious. A manipulative television producer (Daisy Beaumont) plans a heart-tugging docu-drama – another kind of story.

Enter a young man. He knows about Adam’s experiment with the tennis balls, demonstrating the theory of non-locality: particles which begin in synchronicity inevitably move away randomly. What else does he know? Lies proliferate on all sides, the truth slipping in and out of focus.

In this first play of Edward Hall’s tenure, dazzlingly juggled ideas outplay the human dimension, despite the cast’s admirable contributions, intense or amusing. Hall himself directs, maintaining the tension, while Francis O’Connor and Andrzej Goulding provide the high-tech design.

– Heather Neill