Searching for hope in Eldorado

By EJ Martin

Marius von Mayenburg's Eldorado at the Arcola is being billed as a black comedy. This is a mistake. There are moments of humour in this play, but they come hurtling out of the dark fabric of this rotten world like hot needles and vanish no sooner than they arrive. You're not sure if laughing is allowed here, or if anyone remembers what it sounds like. This is no romp, it's a character assassination on humanity.

The show begins with a vivid monologue from Aschenbrenner, property mogul and icon of post-industrial corporate greed, describing in the manner of an oddly dispassionate war correspondent (redolent of A Clockwork Orange's Dr. Brodski) the scenes of carnage and devastation that are raging right outside the walls of the comfortable, bourgeois apartment where we spend most of the evening, an apartment that has been built as a direct result of the our anti-hero Anton's profiting from the atrocities. The language used to describe the horrors being perpetrated will be familiar from any contemporary news report - we are told of "insurgents", "rebels", "riots". The aggressor and the victim, however, are never identified. This Western city seems to be at war with itself, for causes unexamined, and about which the inhabitants of the fashionable but severe cubist apartment seem largely unconcerned, entirely preoccupied as they are with themselves. As Thekla tellingly says: "I'm in a safe place, I'm not supposed to ask what's happening".

None of the characters are particularly likeable or sympathetic. They spend the whole play having dense, verbose conversations in which not one person is really listening to single word that anyone else is saying. Mothers ignore daughters, pupils ignore teachers, husbands ignore wives, and vice versa - all whilst swearing blind that they are listening. Every single person thinks that they know best, and that their suffering is the most profound.

This is an incredibly 'wordy' piece that takes place primarily around the dinner table, so it is very fortunate that we have a skilled writer in von Mayenburg, aided by the accomplished and elegant translation by Maja Zade. von Mayenburg has also translated the work of Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp, as Zade has Caryl Churchill, and these influences are apparent here. There is beautiful poetry in the play, rich and often spiky words that are sadly sometimes blunted in the mouths of the older actors who attempt to steamroller it by matching its heightened quality with overly expansive gestures and voices raised a little too loud. Amanda Hale, by contrast, takes a more softly softly approach, evoking with Thekla's "sleepwalker's voice" a dreamlike state that perfectly suits this 'luminous nightmare' of a play. She shimmers throughout, delicate but highly abrasive, constantly on the brink of tears, feeling perpetually wronged by everyone around her. Michael Colgan is also compelling to watch, his portrayal of Anton's quiet, desperate journey into madness beautifully wide-eyed and understated.

Headlong and Nottingham Playhouse's wonderful production of 1984 that is about to transfer from the Arcola stage to the West End shows us Orwell's vision of a dystopia where human contact is kept to a minimum, original thought is illegal, art and culture eradicated. In Eldorado, human contact is no crime, but people seem to have forgotten how to do it. It is simulated, and what is achieved is a mere poor imitation - of love, of concern, of true empathy and engagement. Culture as we know it still exists - our leading lady is a concert pianist - but brings no joy and is seen as a terrible cross to bear ("I've lost the music in all this carnage" ), yet another thing in her life conspiring against her personal happiness. The idea of nature and bucolic living as salvation is common to both worlds. In 1984, Winston and Julia escape to the countryside to commit their first indiscretion. In Eldorado, Thekla seeks solace from her discontent in her garden, and Anton loses himself in the quiet movements of his koi carp pond and the darkness of the forest at night. Neither of them find what they are looking for.

Reviews of previous productions have often found the play to be light on plot and hard to follow due to a distancing temporal elasticity and episodic structure. This is something that Mongrel Thumb seem to have overcome with this offering, although it is not without the odd misstep - a sudden, brief moment of physical theatre between Thekla and Anton in the middle of scene that is jarring and exists in isolation, never again referenced or repeated. But they have done well to diminish the abstract and focus on the meat of the play - the issues of class divide in a world where these characters can eat a lobster dinner whilst they watch they city burn below; the rich seam of dysfunctional family life; the personal and professional tragedies played put against the backdrop of a real, perpetual war.

It's difficult to suggest that the play offers any hope or redemption. It is nihilistic and unrelenting piece. There is a long speech where the ghost of Aschenbrenner makes a persuasive case for suicide. At a point when things seem particularly bleak, Anton says: "This is not the end. It can get even worse. If you think this is the end, you're an optimist." It is not until the final scene that we are presented with our titular Eldorado, the great white hope of the human race in a world riven by greed and solipsism, and (no spoilers) - it's certainly not life as we know it.

Go see Eldorado. See it for the spell the prose will cast, the view into the surreal world that is ours-but-not-quite-ours, to make you think about the state of things. Go see it to say you saw the first sleek and throroughbred outing of this exciting new company. Just don’t go for laughs.

@Emma_JaneMartin

LISTINGS INFORMATION

Mar 26 2014 - May 03 2014 Monday – Saturday at 7.30pm - £20 (£16 concessions)

Opening performances (26 March - 31 March ) – all tickets £16

Saturday matinees at 2.30pm - £18 (£15 concessions)

Pay What You Can Tuesdays

www.arcolatheatre.com

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