Park Theatre – until 23 March 2019
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Henry Devas dark, dark comedy about depression and male suicide packs an emotional punch that will leave you reeling. Stand-up comedian Matt (Danny Kirrane) introduces himself with a delightfully cheesy routine and begins to talk about being a new father and how life was looking good – until the war came.
Matt hides himself behind the curtains of his filthy flat, with boarded up window and door as his companions wake up. Tristabel (Tom Canton) and Benzies (Daniel Portman) talk and argue until they address the elephant in the room – the ladder in the centre of the flat. This leads “Up” the elusive and mystical escape from the terrors of what is outside the door.
It doesn’t take long to figure out who these two friends really are, but this doesn’t detract from the play, as Devas’ writing is razor sharp and brutally honest and Jez Pike’s pacy direction ensures fresh emotional body blows could come at any time. Matt’s friends never let him forget how much they are helping and protecting him from the world, and constantly remind him of his physical flaws and bad choices or mistakes he has made in his life. This usually looks like laddish banter, but Portman’s Benzies can flip from puppyish enthusiasm to psychotic violence in a heartbeat, and Canton’s Tristabel watches events like a hawk, with calm intellectual manipulation occasionally switching to vicious verbal assaults. Matt’s incapacity to either leave the flat for the outside world or escape “Up” is painful to watch, as he builds his self-belief only to crumble at the crucial moment. Elizabeth Wright’s set is claustrophobic and a frightening representation of a tortured and trapped mind and the proximity of the actors to the audience creates an exquisite tension, usually dispelled after an assault on Matt by some brilliantly naff “Your mum…” jokes.
The stellar (and hilarious) cast nail their performances, with Canton oozing frustration and disdain from every pore and Portman excelling in both the childlike and Neanderthal extremes of Benzies. Liam Smith is smooth as the mysterious saviour Fast Chrissie, and is utterly recognisable and slappable as Uncle Chris, who simply can’t understand why Matt can’t just pull himself together for the sake of his daughter. Kirrane wanders around the set in his underwear drinking in a palpable fug of despair, completely unable to stop listening to the negative thoughts that hold him captive. His description of how it actually feels to BE him to his confused Uncle Chris is one of the most heartfelt and gut-wrenching pieces of writing and acting I’ve seen on stage for a long time. And then Uncle Chris’ inability to process Matt’s pain is soul-destroying to watch but reminds the audience of how hard it still is for many men to speak out and support each other with mental health issues.
Powerful and moving, filled with unflinching insight and brutally dark humour, We’re Staying Right Here is an unforgettable production that deserves a wider audience.