Review: The City

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily true or false; it can be both true and false.”

That the Sydney Theatre Company’s program for The City should include that 1955 quote from legendary English playwright Harold Pinter is appropriate ... not just because the play’s author, Martin Crimp, is seen by many as the inheritor of Pinter’s mantle, but more importantly because The City so deftly shades the distinctions between reality and unreality, between truth and falsehood.

The play begins simply enough, with husband Christopher (Colin Moody) and wife Clair (Belinda McClory) exchanging thoughts, as you do, at the end of a day’s work.

Christopher talks about the troubles he had with his swipe card, the possible problems from a rumoured restructure in his office, of the potential power wielded by his boss’s personal assistant.

Clair, a literary translator, has had a more eventful day, centred on a chance meeting on the railway platform with a Muslim writer whose daughter, dressed in strikingly pink jeans, has just been “abducted” from the platform by his sister-in-law, a nurse.

There’s obviously quite a bit of immediate chemistry between the two, who have a lengthy chat over coffee, before he gives Clair the pink-covered diary he had bought as a present for his daughter.

Equally obviously, the chemistry between Clair and Christopher has fizzled to the perfunctory. Here we go ... husband under pressure at work, a fading relationship, wife meets exciting new love interest ... of course she’ll accept his invitation to attend an overseas conference, there’ll be an affair, there’ll be angst and, one way or the other, there’ll be a resolution.

Following the first of several completely blacked-out scene breaks, a nurse knocks on the door. No, not the nurse from the railway platform. This one, Jenny (Anita Hegh), is a neighbour, complaining about the couple’s children keeping her awake after work on night shift.

But where are the children ... apart from having locked themselves in a downstairs room using a key they’d found after ripping up the carpet? And isn’t Jenny’s story about her doctor husband’s role in grinding a Middle Eastern city to dust and oblivion just a bit too fantastic? Especially when it so fits the scenario painted by Clair’s Muslim writer.

Then another blacked-out scene break ... and another ... and another. Clair does go to her conference ... a daughter (Georgia Bowery, who shares the role with Gigi Perry on an alternate-nights basis) appears ... then reappears with Nurse Jenny as a “mini-me” replica, both of them wearing bright pink jeans.

Is what we’re watching really a play in the conventional sense of the term? Or is Crimp playing games with the audience, taking them into the mind of a playwright as he/she constructs scenes and dialogues, introduces new characters to test possibilities, changes the internal balance to see how that effects outcomes?

Of course, all plays take us into the mind of the writer. That’s a given, because a play is, after all, a literary construct. But this seems to take us a step — or two or three — deeper into that mind.

A clue to Crimp’s innermost thoughts comes from the pink-covered diary, which Clair has used and gives Christopher as a Christmas present. He reads from it about the cities that writers build inside their minds, about how they populate them with characters and situations, and mine them for ideas — and about how the imaginary edifice can crumble to sterile dust and clog the pen.

It’s provocative, edgy stuff and it has obviously required magnificent directing from Benedict Andrews and huge application and talent from all the actors to bring it off so successfully.

Their movement, their delivery, their clever use of silences that can roar all combine to heighten tension almost unbearably. The performances are all strong, though Belinda McClory’s prowling, coiled-spring depiction of Clair would stand out on any stage.

And this isn’t just any stage. Ralph Myers’ very simple, yet so effective construction is a masterpiece. Rising like the tiers of a grandstand from the edge of the audience, the set allows Andrews and his troupe a multitude of possibilities as they react to and conflict with each other.

As I watched The City, I was reminded momentarily of a book I owned as a child. I can’t remember the name or content of the book, but I clearly remember the cover, which showed a couple of children sitting in a garden and reading a book.

The cover of the book they were reading was the same as the cover of the book I had, and that of course led to a succession of identical covers disappearing into a vortex. My first real encounter with the concept of infinity intrigued and perplexed me.

I didn’t read any reference to infinity into The City, but I was reminded of the cover’s illusion. Was I in Martin Crimp’s mind, or was I in a mind imagined by Martin Crimp ... or perhaps a mind imagined by a mind imagined by Martin Crimp?

Does it matter? Probably not. The issues raised are important regardless, so just go see an exhilarating piece of theatre, written by a great playwright and put together by a wonderful team.

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