MAYER WAKEFIELD is entertained but let down by an audacious production that, sadly, doesn't ring true
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Universal questions
MARY CONWAY recommends a play which enthrallingly explores the limits of human consciousness
Scary stairs: Chloe Langford's set for John
[Stephen Cumminskey]
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by drama that, despite accomplished performances, cannot overcome an unfocused script
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John
National Theatre, London
BY ANY standards, Annie Baker’s John is an astonishing play. Imaginative, free-thinking and anarchic, in the hands of James Macdonald at the National, it's totally captivating.
Its premise, you could argue, is that the universe has its own spiritual life and that all matter, breathing and inanimate, is possessed of a soul.
As a result, human life is a tiny presence in an unimaginably complex reality and human beings, far from possessing knowledge and power and superiority, struggle with an individual isolation and irrationality that engenders madness. At least, that’s my understanding.
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