A new play full of difficult topics and important themes that currently lacks biteRating
OK
Anna (Avani Zarine) shares a student house with boyfriend Jack (Dominic Goudarzi) and female friends Monica (Lucy Owen) and Kyra (Siân Kayleigh). Tensions are high, and Jack feels isolated as he contests his flatmates’ opinions on pro-life issues. But we learn that Monica has suffered sexual assault in the past, so this is inarguably a space where women’s voices must be given the acknowledgement they deserve. Simultaneously, Anna and Jack are finding their relationship unusually fraught. Anna blames stress from work, resisting discussion, and although concerned, Jack trusts her. From early on, we are aware of another presence; an older male (Robert Firth) who works with Anna and who it turns out she’s been seeing behind Jack’s back. But that’s not the whole story…
Emily Browning’s first play is absolutely packed with important, complex conversations that need to be heard. From discussions of abortion and bodily autonomy, to date rape, grooming, emotional blackmail, blame and female mutual support, it’s all there. And it commendably recognises that these issues can be complex and messy, with emotional turmoil muddying the waters of clear thought. At moments, there’s an actual frisson as women in the audience recognise the mansplaining portrayed, how Anna is commodified and where gaslighting occurs. However, to give these topics the full dramatic punch they deserve requires clarity in delivery, and this production is still finding lucidity, its focus often diluted. At 90 minutes, it is overly long, meaning scenes lack momentum and tension at times of core conflict.
The cast gives solid performances, the best moments being when the girls are playful with each other, which have a genuine authenticity to them. In creating warm domesticity, however, there’s a lot of tea making and flopping on sofas, against which the emotional turbulence described doesn’t have a strong enough dramatic contrast. And for the audience to care about Anna, when she herself is denying there’s any problem, we need to feel her discomfort much more palpably through the performance as well as her words. Multiple entrances and exits often leave the stage empty except for a sofa, when the space could be used in a more intense way to enact Anna’s suffocating, debilitating position. With the play’s title referencing Maya Angelou’s ‘a picnic indoors’ – indicating a scene of close, personal interaction – we need to feel that intimacy, that personal space and its boundaries being tested, rather more.
The lighting design is currently functional and one note, but there’s potential to create more vivid atmospheres that reflect and enhance the drama, such as in the dark, early hours when Anna returns home confused and concerned, and daylight moments when she’s passing as functioning normally. A scene where Jack makes phone calls, punctuated by lights blinking, needs much more decisive changes, and distinct physical poses would better create the sense of his deteriorating situation. Equally, an enhanced soundtrack could imbue the scenes with atmosphere and signal temporal shifts.
Most importantly, the change in character of Jack is problematic for a play avoiding stereotyping. The only male seen on stage, he begins as a rational, emotionally supportive one, yet in the second act, he transforms, becoming someone no longer capable of understanding the basics of consent. There’s no learning curve, and rather than being rehabilitated, he’s ejected from the story in an easy out, meaning it’s then a less balanced one. A Picnic Indoors is a debut play and chalks out the lines for an interesting and very valid discussion about women’s empowerment and deconstructing patriarchal manipulation. As it stands, the arguments would benefit from delineation, particularly in their dramatisation, but since the play is still in its early days, there is time for that.
Written by Emily Browning
Directed by Ella Jones Meyer
Programming by Adara Fernandez
Produced by Citrus Jar Theatre Company
A Picnic Indoors has completed its run at The Space
