Home Reviewers

Kat Portman and James Seabright for Ordinary Dreams Limited present

Ordinary Dreams
Or, How to Survive a Meltdown with Flair

By Marcus Markou

Directed by Adam Barnard

Trafalgar Studios

12 May - 6 June 2009

y Couzen

A review by Colette Gunn-Graffy for EXTRA! EXTRA!

Ah, middle-class anxiety. It’s up there with death and taxes as one of life’s great inevitabilities – made even more so by the current economic crisis. With financial stability seeming ever farther from grasp and every youth in a hoodie a potential ASBO, surely those caught in between are entitled to a brief meltdown every now and then?

Take Miles (James Lance), for instance, the central character in Marcus Markou’s Ordinary Dreams. His way of dealing with the birth of his first child into this uncertain world is to pick up every piece of glass from the street and confront his noisy neighbours with a candlestick. Although his wife Penny (Imogen Slaughter), an ex-alcoholic with an aloof veneer, takes a more pragmatic approach to parenting, Miles can’t help but be hyper aware of all the ways in which the world is becoming a cesspit. What starts as a gripe becomes an obsession (Miles begins keeping a ‘noise diary’), which soon spirals into delusion (Miles orders an anti-stab vest and antique mace from eBay). Before long, his relationship with Penny and his son has all but broken down, replaced by a fantasy of stepping into the role of Prime Minister to save the world from itself. 

Though Markou’s script is filled with witty one-liners (the trouble with his marriage, Miles confesses is that ‘Penny and I don’t hate the same things anymore”), it’s neither provocative nor terribly reflective. This playwright’s real strength is in parodying the self-absorption and naiveté of urban professionals (Miles expected everything to simply ‘fall into place’ with the birth of his child) whilst still rendering them sympathetic. Of the four characters in the play, Miles is the only one who feels rounded; the other three, including his working-class uni mate Dan (Adrian Bower) and Dan’s spacey New-Age American girl friend Layla (Sia Berkeley), seem to exist only as vehicles for expressing concern and ‘alternative solutions’, such as massage and dream interpretation.

Still, the production is enjoyable. Adam Barnard’s slick direction benefits enormously from the casting of James Lance, who completely owns the show as Miles. In addition to nailing his character’s dithering paranoia, his deadpan exits and entrances in a motorised wheelchair (purchased on eBay) are priceless. The dramatic shifts between Miles’ real life and political fantasies are also heightened by Peter Michaels’ pulsating musical compositions, whilst Vicki Fifield’s minimalist design perfectly captures the impersonal austerity both of modern living and commercial news programmes.
The problem with middle-class anxiety of course, is that it can easily be mistaken for – and in fact, often turns out to be – a case of head-up-your-own-arse syndrome. Miles is an amusing character but there is a point at which his whinging becomes irritating. As Dan says, trying to snap Miles out of it: ‘Who isn’t having a crisis?’ Moreover, Miles’ laments are hackneyed (loud neighbours, the crowded tube system) and his relationship with Penny never feels real enough to take the loss of it seriously.

Whilst Ordinary Dreams may come across as a warning against middle-class self-absorption (certainly Dan’s long-winded monologue towards the end seems to point that way) it doesn’t actually tell us any more than we already know. That Miles survives his meltdown has little to do with flair; he simply wakes up.

Tues - Sat @ 7:45pm; Matinees Thurs / Sat @3pm

Tickets £15 - £25

Box Office: 0870 060 6632

 www.ambassadortickets.com

Studio 2, Trafalgar Studios, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY

Copyright © EXTRA! EXTRA All rights reserved

Home Reviewers