Writer: Penelope Skinner<\/p>\n
Director: Eddie Boyce<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an ominous sound of waves on shingle and unsettling discordant music. The first scene in Eigengrau takes place on a beach. Grieving Tim Muffin addresses his dead nan while clutching a cat-shaped jar of her ashes. A few moments later, half-dressed marketer Mark stumbles into the living room of a flat, where professional activist Cassie is writing a speech on her laptop.<\/p>\n
Their prickly, interrupting conversation is characteristic of playwright Penelope Skinner\u2019s comic observational brilliance. Forthright Cassie, perfectly realised by Neila Stephens, tells Mark: \u201cI work for a feminist organisation? I\u2019m an activist \u2026\u201d to which he replies that he \u201cDidn\u2019t know people still did that kind of thing\u201d and she asks archly \u201cFeminism?\u201d Mark is clearly attracted to Cassie as a challenge for his womanising prowess, and Tom Zachar gives the role a successful swagger, compellingly charming-but-unpleasant.<\/p>\n
Four young people cross paths in the lonely vastness of early-21st-century London. Loveable loser Tim (played with poignant vulnerability by Joe Urquhart) lives with Mark, who is an old university friend. Cassie has found a flatmate on Gumtree: Rose, embodied with total conviction by Hannah No\u00ebl Brennan. Rose, obsessionally in love with Mark after a brief encounter, is literally away with the fairies, believing in angels, numerology, astrology, signs, portents, and happy endings. The cast and director Eddie Boyce, all graduates of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, are outstanding.<\/p>\n
Eigengrau, Skinner\u2019s second play, premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2010, earning her an Evening Standard \u201cMost Promising Playwright\u201d nomination. After bluntly calling her first play about sexual (mis)alliances Fucked, Skinner explores some of the same topics, but picks a title that is mysterious, bordering on the pretentiously obscure. The German word Eigengrau is glossed as \u201cthe colour seen by the eye in perfect darkness\u201d and becomes vaguely, variously significant over the course of the play.<\/p>\n
Together, Stephens and Zachar formed the Mop and Bucket Theatre Company during their first show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022. They have previously produced Mike Bartlett\u2019s two-hander An Intervention, another complicated and politically engaged drama and will be back later this year with The Night Before Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Technical designer Maddy Whitby creates disturbing scenic shifts, flooding the stage at key moments with disembodied noise and blood red or purple lights. In between the scenes, a fragmented mosaic of voices advertise for flatmates, dates, hook-ups in an unsettling portrait of city life: \u201csense of humour\/honest, clean\/no husbands, no expectations, no mind games\/jeans and a T-shirt and likes sucking cock\/Central, Jubilee, District and Circle\/no fat men, no dramas, no baggage\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0About two-thirds of the way through, there\u2019s a \u201chydration break\u201d (aka an interval). The shorter second part packs in a horribly intimate blow job scene, really bad karaoke, and further unexpected twists. The show\u2019s excellence is partly thanks to Skinner\u2019s well-crafted script, which avoids easy answers and allows each character a very human moral ambiguity. Like the mixed-up love scenes from Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream crossed with the violence of King Lear, this is a startling, thought-provoking play. The four actors give extraordinary performances as they explore Eigengrau\u2019s messy themes of sex, death, money, and obsession.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Runs until 28 August 2026<\/p>\n
\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t90%<\/p>\n
\t\t\tAmbiguity and obsession<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer: Penelope Skinner Director: Eddie Boyce There\u2019s an ominous sound of waves on shingle and unsettling discordant music.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[46140,46141,46142,46143,27,46144,46145,46146,46147,3953,46148,387,46149],"class_list":["post-112226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-eddie-boyce","tag-eigengrau","tag-hannah-noel-brennan","tag-joe-urquhart","tag-london","tag-maddy-whitby","tag-mop-and-bucket-theatre","tag-neila-stephens","tag-penelope","tag-review","tag-the-space","tag-theatre","tag-tom-zachar"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117167574577383046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}