Dealer’s Choice
Donmar Warehouse, London
★★★★

PATRICK MARBER’s Dealer’s Choice enjoys a splendid revival at the Donmar 30 years after its acclaimed premiere at the National Theatre.

And it loses none of its panache. Indeed, it connects with a modern audience with piercing clarity and at many levels.

At its simplest, it’s a poker game. Act 1 is the build-up; Act 2 the thrills. This theme alone is more than enough to get the juices flowing for it taps into the wild competitive spirit in all of us and we can enjoy the sheer adrenaline rush.

But this is more than just a sporting diversion. For the six participants in the game all have a story and all are steeped in the culture of gambling, where the lust for money — and more usually the loss of it — sits deep in their innermost hearts.

The story revolves around Stephen (Daniel Lapaine), a struggling restaurateur who hosts a poker game every Sunday night in his basement. The players encompass three of his staff, his seemingly feckless son, Carl, and a customer called Ash who needs a debt repaid. While the first half zips along with sparky banter and the second pounds with tension, the whole play captures the dangerous pack dynamic of men who find themselves together in a woman-free zone. The gambling instinct and its intrinsic treachery seems to typify the male gender here and in that sense is slightly old-newsy in the 2020s.

Director Matthew Dunster’s take on it, though, is spectacular and Moi Tran’s design a wonderful enhancement to the play. The opening of the second act, especially, sees the whole stage rise to the gods, leaving a dense darkness that clears to become the palpably seedy basement where hierarchy takes a dive and it’s every man for himself.

The cast carry the play at full throttle. Alfie Allen heightens the tension with his fiery Frankie and Theo Barklem-Biggs as chef easily commands his galley kitchen with convincingly professional aplomb. Brendan Coyle broods unnervingly as Ash, Kaspar Hilton-Hille as Carl perfectly personifies the casual, drifting purposelessness of a particular kind of youth and Lapaine easily portrays the ironic, aggrieved boss who, unnerved by his son’s aimlessness, always resorts to an unshakeable predisposition to win at all costs.

What characterises this odd assortment of individuals and sets the humorous tone, is the way they grapple for relatively small amounts of money. High finance this is not, nor glossy casino gaming. This is life on the edge, shabby but desperate.

And then there’s Mugsy, the head waiter, bringing a kind of joy to the whole proceedings and raising the comedic experience to superb levels. Hammed Animashaun — already an award-winning comedic actor — fills the stage with his brilliant characterisation of the one person in the play who brings true dimension. He is reason alone to see this production and makes your sides ache.    

What is the play about? Addiction? Parenting? Men at their weakest? No. This is about the capitalist instinct: destructive, alive and deeply etched. It’s a warning.

Runs until June 7. Box office: (020) 3282-3808, donmarwarehouse.com.