Saw this Saturday night and ABSOLUTELY ADORED it!
I do count myself a Zeldin fan, getting hooked on his extreme naturalistic style with "Beyond Caring" and booking all his London shows since. This is the most plotty of his shows, as it's "after Antigone," which has a plot, but the conversational way of talking remains ultra-naturalistic, even if there is more schematic design behind the plotting.
As a fan of Sophocles' Greek plays, I do understand why this would weird out an "Antigone" fan, as the plot doesn't follow point for point (I'll elaborate a bit after a spoiler warning). This is not, however, as loose as something like "Romeo and Julie," but nor is it as faithful as something like Patrick Marber's "After Miss Julie." What it is is a remarkable translation of the ancient Greek THEMES to modern characters and situations.
Some spoilers follow. . .
For Sophocles fans, the thing that jars immediately is that the dead bloke, whose ashes/burial/disposal are the plot catalyst, is the FATHER of Emma D'Arcy's Annie (aka Antigone) and Alison Oliver's Issy (aka Ismene) rather than their BROTHER. For some, that will be a plot stretch too far.
What this means is that it is Oedipus's remains, NOT those of Polynices, that the main characters are fighting over here (to my mind, it's fortuitous we've got the superlative Mark Strong in town in "Oedipus," which I am chomping at the bit to see as a companion piece lol). It's reinforced that it's Oedipus (or his modern avatar) who has died because Jerry Killick's Terry (aka Tiresias) tells us that this dead Dad lost his mind and chased birds around town (and such bird imagery is more relevant to Oedipus's story than Polynices's story in the Sophocles).
Anyway, this tussle over a man's ashes initially felt like the least credible plot point in the play, as the source material is all mega-wars, mega-deaths and mega-punishments, whereas here we simply have a daughter and her uncle squabbling over whether to bury ashes in a funeral plot (Uncle Chris wants to move on) or to keep them in the house the dead man so loved (Niece Annie, who wants to honour the past). It felt small-scale and silly by comparison to the source material.
But then Emma D'Arcy's unsmiling dark angel Annie rocks up, thundering about in an otherwise affable joky household who are obsessed with glass windows and letting the light in, and she is so obviously freighted with dark grave baggage that the tension ramps up exponentially to weighty Greek levels after all, even if the conversations remain Zeldin-chatty-naturalistic. D'Arcy basically comes in like a wrecking ball, as Miley Cyrus would say, and they are so emotionally loaded and confrontational, condensing that intensity into remarkable disconcerting stillness, that the audience perched, edge of their seats, mouths agape, some gasping (similar to the thrilling atmosphere I experienced at the Royal Court's "Giant"), anticipating confrontations inevitably brewing among these characters.
Anyway, the Greek theme about whether we can change our fate, whether we are what we are, or whether we can move on, is SO perfectly dealt with here, with powerful scenes featuring each and every member of the family, and even Jerry Killick's Terry, half moaning chorus, half prophetic Tiresias, is part of it. In a way, Killick does here what he did in "The Confessions," which is that he grounds the piece in a believable world, musing on the others' messes while encouraging everyone to tuck into a takeaway.
D'Arcy gives everything to their character's inner world, and it's thrilling absorbing watch. And Tobias Menzies's Chris, who opposes her plans for the ashes, is almost as strong as the antagonist to her protagonist.
My favourite character, though, was neither of these, but instead, Alison Oliver's Issy. Oliver's chirpy cheery natural sounding expressiveness, her constant injection of the word "lol" into conversations (she uses it in speech about as much as I use it in writing, lol, and probably for the same reasons, to stay upbeat in a sea of downbeat), her endearing effusiveness, the way she squeals to block out other people's mounting aggression, it just makes for such a REAL feeling character, such a person of now, trying to do the right thing, and grounds the whole piece in what feels like real life.
Less weighed down by family history, Lee Braithwaite's Leni, stepchild to Chris, is by far the funniest character, out of the loop on so many of the actual goings on, yet an emotional savant able to read everyone's moods and likely actions, a voice for the audience's perceptions that cuts through most hilariously. Braithwaite's comic timing is pitch perfect.
So although I started this play with a degree of doubt as regards the plot, I ended up dazzled by the tension, the action, the acting, the naturalism, the humour, the darkness, and the way Zeldin makes the Theban plays feel so relevant, riveting and now.
4 and a half stars from me.