02.11.1995

Strangled passion

Helen Ellis reviews 'Trouble sleeping' by Nick Ward (Warehouse Theatre until November 12)

THE SENSE of being trapped in our own isolation and egoistical prison. The constant striving and utter hopelessness of ever breaking free. These are common themes in theatre as well as cinema today.

But Nick Ward, who is the writer and director of Trouble sleeping, explores them with a sensitivity, passion and inventiveness which can be uncommon in a theatre where increasingly there are no happy endings.

Nick Ward wrote and directed Dakota Road, a Channel Four film, and has had several plays produced. He manages to move from realism to surrealism, from the humdrum and drudgery of everyday life to existential philosophy without distancing you from the characters. Rather he draws you irresistibly into their lives, their psyche, their outlook and the circumstances they now find themselves in.

Neither are we left only with a Nietzschean despair. Somehow we are always left with a certain optimism because of the very humanity of the characters. While the characters in Trouble sleeping are larger than life, violent and ridden with strangled passion, they never repulse the audience or leave it in disbelief.

The ‘humanity’ of the characters is not portrayed in a narrow way, as despite it all ‘we are all innately good’. Ward lets the full scope of our pain and longing come into view, in a society which shackles this longing and pain and will not let it roam free.

The play is perhaps slow to start, setting up the story of a mother and son living alone together in the Fens - work the audience could have done itself. But the slow pace of the beginning juxtaposes and puts into sharp focus the speed with which we catch a glimpse of the real essence of the characters, as it explodes violently onto the stage at the end.

Throughout, detailed and powerful performances from the whole cast seduce the audience into the everyday of the characters’ lives and what lies beneath.

The Warehouse Theatre is in East Croydon. This play is worth the 15-minute journey from London, Victoria.

Helen Ellis