Ents: Arts

Review: The Lightning Play

By Samuel Valdez Lopez
Published: 16/05/2009

An innocent get-together between several couples, all of them with their own issues and fears, derails into a night of revelations, shouting matches and unravelling secrets.

A brand new plasma TV with a ludicrously complex remote control, a rather overpriced, dust-gathering rug with a curious attraction to uncomfortable questions, kids wanting candy and severe weather conditions during one Halloween night all enter the mix of the rather pleasingly exhausting show, The Lightning Play.

Max (Todd Baker), a ghost writer for celebrity autobiographies, and his slightly disturbed, shopaholic wife, Harriet (Venetia Lambrick), organise a dinner on Halloween night at their posh apartment in Hampstead. Their guests comprise Eddie, Max’s drinking buddy and an ex-monk, Jacklyn, a weirdo new age hippie girl Eddie met in the park, and Imogen and Marcus, a couple that know Anna, Max and Harriet’s daughter, who’s gone to do humanitarian work.

Each character has a skeleton in their closet, the origin of which is explained as the action freezes during the party, due to certain keywords or phrases spoken, prompting an explanatory flashback. As the plot delves around, Max’s sardonic humour barely contains his fears and his frustration and Harriet loses her grip on reality. As the evening continues, it becomes clear that Halloween’s haunts and scares are not only outside the house.

Charlotte Jones previously worked with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber adapting the scary story of The Woman in White, and some elements seem to have transferred from that play into this. The recurring ‘vision’ Max sees every time the TV turns itself on was quite chilling, and although the revelation of what it means does not seek to shock, it is an unnerving leitmotif for anguish. The expensive rug that haunts Harriet might not seem as scary, but it does involve a great twist.

Similarities have been drawn between this play and Macbeth (by The Guardian) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (by The Independent). The play does share a few elements with both of them, but these elements, mainly issues of guilt and perception, are common in literature, working perfectly for a great show.

Although the cast were absolutely devoted to their parts, it was Venetia Lambrick and Todd Baker’s show, really. Lambrick was so intense on stage that it would not be a stretch to assume that after each performance she would end up being quite exhausted. Todd Baker was a little more subdued, but his facial range and his intonation portrayed the ever-growing frustration of his character, scrambling to sustain an imploding marriage whilst having a constant reminder of his lost children popping up at the television. A magnificent show.

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