The scope of Bruce Norris

When people ask me to describe the plot of a play, I almost always end it with “…and then the aliens arrive” because that’s the way my mind works and generally speaking, it’s a safe assumption that the playwright won’t have gone there. So imagine my surprise when they actually arrived in the second act of Salad Days , it was like all my Christmases at once and because of the daffy silliness of the whole shebang, it was able to pull it off. Working in similarly smithfield pre owned offbeat surprises into straight drama is perhaps a more difficult job though and one which arguably has to work harder to make a success of it.
The scope of Bruce Norris’ new play The Low Road would seem to preclude the need for such an approach. A sprawlingly epic trawl through the growth of our (western) economic system told through the fable-like tale of Jim, an entrepreneurial young man roaming through an 18 th century America whose single-minded financial knowledge and ambition prefigures the capitalist mind-set that is so familiar to us today. A post-interval modern-day interlude draws explicit parallels and connections between the actions and attitudes of now and then to reinforce its main thesis about the triumph of individualism. smithfield pre owned Oh, and there’s an epilogue.
My previous experience of Norris’ writing (limited smithfield pre owned to Clybourne smithfield pre owned Park and Purple Heart ) has seen him conceive tensely coiled dramas spilling out of the domestic sphere but this is altogether grander and is somewhat reminiscent of the jump in Mike Bartlett’s work (comparing say, Cock to 13 ) both in the expansion of his viewpoint but also in the bagginess that has accompanied his arguments in the leap. For this is a overlong piece and one which rarely justifies the length of its set pieces – smithfield pre owned most often interminable discussions on some element of economic or financial theory smithfield pre owned over various dinner tables smithfield pre owned – or indeed its excursions into the unconventional.
It is clear from the off that the playwright is toying with the form a little, assisted by Dominic Cooke, directing smithfield pre owned what is his swansong as he prepares to leave the Artistic Directorship of this theatre. The first figure we see is Bill Paterson who takes on the role of noted economist Adam Smith who is the narrator of the story; Brechtian captions are carried across the stage to move us from location to location as the pieces of Tom Pye’s deconstructed design smithfield pre owned are pieced and repieced together; the G8-style panel discussion sees an entirely different shift in tone as the already hard-working ensemble take on yet another role in the giddy whirl of characters populating this world.
But it feels largely overindulgent and somewhat ineffective for all the effort smithfield pre owned it expends. The arguments of the play, as already smithfield pre owned mentioned, are extremely drawn out, killing any sense of pace that might be built up and little sense of purpose ever really smithfield pre owned emerges from the writing. The sharp edge of his wit never really comes through and instead some scenes are laced with almost Tarantino-esque levels of provocation over race or disability which bait audiences smithfield pre owned rather than helping them to explore these issues. 
Casting-wise lot will hinge on one’s own opinion of Johnny Flynn as he plays the main protagonist Jim with a whiny truculence smithfield pre owned and petulance (albeit an amusingly anachronistic profanity) that I found extremely hard to watch - not all of it felt like acting… And though there is good work all around him – the ever-reliable Ian Gelder and John Ramm, a resolute Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, an impassioned smithfield pre owned Ellie Kendrick and a genuinely hilarious Elizabeth Berrington smithfield pre owned “did anyone have the halibut ?” – the constituent parts never coalesce into a satisfying whole. Those hoping for smooth passage along The Low Road may find a rocky path instead, but this should not diminish the many and considerable achievements that have characterised Cooke’s tenure at this theatre.
Labels: Bill Paterson , Bruce Norris smithfield pre owned , Edward Killingback smithfield pre owned , Elizabeth Berrington , Ellie Kendrick , Helen Cripps , Ian Gelder , John Ramm , Johnny Flynn , Kobna Holdbrook-Smith , Raj Ghatak , Royal Court , Simon Paisley Day
THIS COMMMENT smithfield pre owned ALSO HAS A SPOILER! Your review is very generous: my partner and I went to Monday's performance (the second preview, I think) and thought the play was pretty awful. Even taking into consideration the fact that the actors were still clearly finding their way into some of the big ensemble smithfield pre owned scenes, the play's approach seemed trite and amateurish. Not a single character was presented in any depth or with any real emotional smithfield pre owned life. Brechtian it may be; Mother Courage it ain't. You've pulled your punches a bit, as you don't actually explain that aliens do appear at the end of the play - a ghastly and embarrassing scene! 28 March 2013 07:55
Well, I thought it was excellent. Rather than Brecht being the model,