In the beginning, says Aristotle, there was just a chorus. They sang and they danced and wove stories until one day an Athenian genius called Thespis – the eponymous father of theatre – reached into the chorus and pulled out a single character. That day, drama began.
Whether by accident or by design, Mark Ravenhill has reinvented this wheel. Experimental theatre has brought stagecraft round full circle, and watching Pool (no water) is a little bit like watching drama being discovered for the first time. Out of the chorus of nameless, listless failed artists, ‘She’ emerges – successful, charismatic, the world’s new epicentre. The chorus love her, they resent her, they cannot take their eyes off her, they come when she calls and yet they hate her with frightening passion. ‘I could tear out your hair,’ says one, ‘rip off your clothes and spit right there in your cunt.’
‘She’ invites her old associates to come and see the pool she has had built, the symbol of her success in life. They cannot but follow her. They celebrate their reunion, drink themselves into a slumber and then She suggests they go skinnydipping in her new pool at midnight. She leads the way. And, just as this threatens to turn into a Friendly Fires song, you remember the title. Pool. No water. At the climax of her happiness, the central character falls and lands in a mangled heap on the concrete.
This moment should be bathetic in every sense of the word, but it works. She lies there screaming, as one of the chorus says, ‘more of an animal, less of an angel or a god,’ and a terrible, tragic, reflective silence falls. The rest of the play is a painfully intense examination of the chorus’ feelings of resentment and inadequacy, of the uncomfortable gaps between what we think a man ought to be and what he is.
Sarah MacCready has put together a production with an absolute command of mood. The tone switches with jaw-dropping suddenness from elation to morning-after realism, and drags the viewer along with it. The cast overact furiously, throwing you off balance so that you are never quite sure where you stand in relation to the play. As the actors unfold their weaknesses, their doubts, their anxieties, they draw the audience in to those same worries. They implore you for forgiveness. They disgust you, and yet you know they are like you.
The acting is raw and dynamic, as the chorus constantly change their patterns of interaction and the configuration of the stage to match the mood of the piece. They are not individuals, but they do not have the collective identity of the Greek chorus either; instead, a single human personality seems to have been diffracted across five people. It is a bit like deconstructed cuisine, where the ingredients of a familiar dish are served separately, each done to perfection. The five actors manage this very well on the whole, although from time to time one or two do not look entirely comfortable. There is an air of engaging spontaneity about everything that they do.
I do not mean to say that you will like this play. Pool (no water), like so much experimental theatre, still feels a banal need to flout its ‘edginess,’ screaming ‘CUNT!’ every other minute and casting off clothing and references to heroin addiction left, right and centre. But I will say that you should give it a chance. Let it slip under your skin, let it question your sanity, let it pick you up and bear you wherever it will, and you will be taken out of yourself and totally immersed in the pool. This is a rattling, gripping, teasing production, a can of Relentless to the slumbrous ruby port of your average garden play. Give it a shot.
Verdict: I looked at you I knew you wanted to…
Pool (no water) is on in the Amphitheatre at Saint Catherine’s on Saturday 15th May at 8.30pm and Sunday 16th May at 6pm. Entrance is free.
