When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other (NT)

All anyone needs to know about where it ‘leads’ is to look at the history of the work of the major players here when working with each other. Crimp and Mitchell work together frequently, they will undoubtedly have another project or two on the go. I can imagine an opera being one, although maybe not with George Benjamin this time (he isn’t particularly prolific). Crimp and Blanchett also work together but infrequently, so in maybe five years’ time or so on a translation of a contemporary European play? Something that would turn up at the Barbican and do some similar international venues. All three have a similarity in their approach to theatre, so they will likely keep working together.

This production has a small possibilty of being done somewhere like Avignon, or a guest slot at the Schaubuhne but nothing has been announced so far. Given Crimp and Mitchell’s international profile I’d be surprised if it doesn’t turn up somewhere in Europe in the next year or two. Maybe in translation though, and with another cast (I can imagine a number of French performers who’d be up for it, in fact, it did bring to rmind a more European approach in its discussion of ideas).*

Think of their work as the arthouse film of theatre, not widely seen and with its own more exclusive, yet appreciative, audience.

* I haven’t had chance to talk at length about my appreciation of it but the slipperiness of the roles and the layering of Richardson’s archaisms over the contemporary sexualised roleplay was fascinating. I was saddened to see some not aooreciating the way the language layered this text over subtext and I thought it was beautifully done. The final section (was this ‘reality’ or another layer of roleplay?) in particular with its references to ‘Pamela’; hunting, harpsichord lessons and so on contrasting with the banal bourgeois exchanges of the couple. The whole performative element of language was such a strong part of the whole production.