Reverberation at Bristol Old Vic – review

Our home is our castle but it can also act as our prison. Matthew López’s 2015 piece Reverberation, making its UK premiere but written before his two-parter The Inheritance became one of the plays of the 21st century, has taken on greater meaning since all of us found ourselves trapped in our homes as the pandemic swept the world. Rewritten and moved to London from New York, the work appears deeper and more carefully wrought than the measured American reviews of the original suggest.

Jack Sain’s production starts with a scene of energetic lovemaking and brief flashes of full frontal nudity but its explicit beginnings soon make way for something more finely tuned, where nuance, love, and hope spar with addiction, pain, and despair. López proved with The Inheritance that he is a worthy successor to Tony Kushner and though this is a work more in miniature, both in length, cast size, and scope, it still has that richness of tone and thought that only a master craftsman can shape.

Michael Ahomka-Lindsay’s Jonathan is sharp, smart, and cultured, the kind of guy whose Grindr is off the hook and who can make his multitude of lovers scream their satisfaction. Yet early on, we see the trappings his carefully curated flat, full of books and art, holds for him, his body seizing up into violent contortions at the moment he reaches his front door, any moments he leaves the space a carefully designed sprint to his assignation and back as though he doesn’t trust his legs to get him back to his safe space.

We gradually discover the tragic reasons for his entrapment. Quenching his grief in random hookups and a carefully topped-up decanter of whisky, this is a man clinging on to familiarity and control, a man whose urbanity is sometimes snapped by childish, angry outbursts.

His recovery may be helped by his burgeoning friendship with upstairs neighbour Claire (Eleanor Tomlinson), swept in from the States and bringing the ying to his yang in her chaotic lifestyle, full of dates with moneyed older men and borrowing of expensive items from the fancy retail stores that she works. Both damaged souls, both having lived experience of male violence, their friendship has the chance to bring them both back from their abyss’ if only they will let it.

The third of this trio is an exciting debut from Jack Gibson’s boyishly endearing Wes, besotted with Jonathan from the word go and perhaps offering him a friendship whether romantic or platonic that Jonathan is both pushing and pulling against. Their two scenes together, bookending the piece, are the play’s finest scenes: the subtle nuances flickering between their faces of disappointment, fear, and lust suggesting a dance that balances precariously on the ledge. The original had a shocking moment of violence at its denouement, this production tones this back but is no less devastating, trauma winning out over the chinks of light that human interaction can offer. Its ending is powerfully downbeat.

Sain’s production demonstrates a fine young directing voice, his use of transitions between scenes particularly pertinent as the actors engage in their solitary dances. He draws a terrific performance from Ahomka-Lindsay, who is on his way to defining himself as one of our finest talents, his light tenor capturing the pain and sensitivity of a young man trying to make sense of a world that has barred its teeth at him. His muscular silhouette is captured in Robbie Butler’s sculptural light in moments of solitary agony, he has the physicality of a dancer and the soul of a poet. Gibson more than matches him, finding vulnerability and hope in every motormouthed moment. If the American accent flattens the colour in Tomlinson’s voice, her poise and expressive eyes translate from screen to stage in her professional stage debut.

If some specifics weaken its impact a bit (how does Claire afford the flat but not the clothes in her sales assistant day job and a lurch into physical intimacy that seems a plot crutch rather than a natural development) it is a work that is powerfully presented here at Bristol Old Vic. With a promise to turn the theatre into a hub of new writing, Reverberation is a powerful demonstration of why presenting main stage new plays is important and is a strong appetite cleanser while we wait for what López conjures next.