TheatreReviewAlmeida, London
I complained of Lucy Kirkwood’s last play, NSFW at London’s Royal Court, that it was too short: no such problems with this gloriously rich, mind-expanding three-hour play, which explores the complex relationship between China and America. Co-produced by the Almeida and touring company Headlong, it has the extravagant scale and swagger of the latter’s version of Lucy Prebble’s Enron.
Kirkwood’s play takes the form of a quest. Joe Schofield, a fictional American photojournalist who snapped the lone protester confronting a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989, gets a tip-off that the man may now be living in the US: this leads him on a journey through America’s Chinese community, in the course of which he jeopardises his job, his friendships and his affair with a British market researcher. In Beijing, meanwhile, Joe’s chief contact, Zhang Lin, has problems of his own. Outraged at the death of a 59-year-old neighbour through smog poisoning, Zhang Lin leaks the story to Joe, only to find himself being tortured by the authorities and losing the love of his factory-foreman brother.
“Chimerica” was a term coined by economist Niall Ferguson to indicate the global dominance of the dual country that is China and America. But Kirkwood’s play highlights the sharp differences, as well as the similarities, between the twin superpowers. In America, Joe’s bolshie individualism as a photographer who records world events is ultimately celebrated; in China, Zhang Lin, who has already suffered for his involvement in the Tiananmen protests, pays a heavy price for inciting unrest. Kirkwood goes even further in examining the nature of capitalism in both countries. China may be open to western investment and apparently enthralled by its products; at the same time, Joe’s girlfriend Tessa, in a brilliant presentation-speech to her clients, explains that the only way into its markets is to understand that China is a country that values the supremacy of its culture.
Among a host of other issues, Kirkwood deals with the ethics and practice of photojournalism; and this is dazzlingly reflected in Es Devlin’s design, in which blown up, contact-sheet images are projected on to a revolving cube. Lyndsey Turner’s astonishingly filmic production keeps the action driving forward through 39 scenes and boasts an impressive array of performances. Stephen Campbell Moore precisely captures Joe’s mix of reckless idealism and self-absorption, Benedict Wong eloquently conveys Zhang Lin’s private grief and public defiance, and there is exemplary work from Claudie Blakley as the sharp-tongued Tessa and Sean Gilder as a battered reporter. If we see a better new play this year, we’ll be extremely lucky.
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