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A touch of the emperor’s new clothes, where all is revealed but with little consequence. A chaotic journey through the mish mash of life, challenging, creative; brave and bold.Summary
Rating
Excellent
YOU ARE GOING TO DIE is written and performed by Adam Scott-Rowley with a sense of gravitas that does not always seem merited. Certainly, the delivery is physically expressive, as he chokes and gags, splutters and spits to get his words out – or not, as is often the case. Any void is filled with his stylistic physical delivery, which is impressively bold and demanding as he writhes and wriggles, almost convulsing at points to convey the feeling within.
The play opens with Scott-Rowley sitting naked on the toilet, his body painted in blue and white lines, a torso stained with marks and images. Lighting (Matt Cater) is suitably gloomy, suitably clubby, suitably sinister and Scott-Rowley reacts to the relentless beating soundscape, which is all very atmospheric. Slowly he rises from the shithole where he ponders and engages with memories of living. Almost hypnotically, he moves in and out of a range of characters, old, young, childish, animalistic, and throughout he uses physical form to capture the confused state of existence, even at times suggesting a rebirth. Scott-Rowley seems to shed a character and emotions like a snake sheds its skin – repulsive yet watchable, and the phallus connections seem somehow very apposite. As he wriggles and writhes across the floor at one point, like a worm leaving a trail of silky white stains on the ground we wonder if that is all that remains of any of us. It’s clever, random stuff that confuses, and even when characters’ woes are revisited, it then catches you out like a dream that you cannot hold, morphing into a grotesque nightmare. Scott-Rowley gives an intensely creative performance for sure and clearly the creative input from co-creators Tom Morley and Joseph Prowen is significant.
They play with regressive and progressive atmospheres, unsure if they are liberating, or constraining. They explore the idea of self-knowledge, which at times is absorbing and at once dull, certainly unedifying in moments; and maybe life is just like that. Certainly, vocally Scott-Rowley is adept, switching between vocal ranges to suggest gender, pain, selfish elation, and type.
We have the rather upmarket vacuous girl contrasting with the northern no bullshit male; the clubman who can tell a spade from a spade but not a dildo from the real thing. They are exploring a land where nine billion people on Earth have no real idea where living is taking them to. But what they and we commonly share for certain is death itself: other than that anything goes, as all these lives seem to be heading down the toilet – at times literally.
However, there are moments of real humour, with the girl escaping from the well that holds her or our widowed northern ‘nasty bastard’ exploring a sexuality that is all new to him.
I wouldn’t say it’s fun but rather curious. As an indulgent, disordered account of man’s insecurities it is certainly dangerously unconventional. Absorbing at times, it presents an existential rumination on moments of lives that ultimately go down the pan!
reator and co-performed by: Adam Scott-Rowley
Co-created by: Joseph Prowen and Tom Morley
Lighting Design by: Matt Cater
Finale song composed by: Phil McDonnell
You Are Going To Die plays at Southwark Playhouse until 4 May. Further information and bookings avaialble here.
