(seen at the afternoon performance on 8th October 2025)
Frequently attributed to Margaret Atwood, the adage “men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them” spawns many debates around representations of masculinity.
Alice Birch decides to write something which will explore men in a way rarely represented on stage – or anywhere else for that matter.
She gets exactly halfway through this play, and then writes – in the second act – the play she really wants to write.
First half (as the monkey remarked to two people with whom it chatted at the interval), it was more than happy with Birch’s usual clear text and storytelling… but was not in the least convinced by her exploration of masculinity.
She serves up every stereotype imaginable from grizzled soldier to predator schoolmaster, and sets the young Roman boys (family name, not toga types) in their paths to be mishapenly moulded into men.
Tellingly, only when female characters are introduced just before the interval do we get credible exposition of gender. Able to dive deep into the female psyche in a short scene, because Birch instinctively knows and understands.
With her male characters, there is no comparable map, and she cannot explore what is unknown and potentially uncontrollably explosive. Whole institutes of research rightly (and distressingly having to exist) devoted to the trauma of female rape. Very little on the effects of the same on a young male. Another telling point, perhaps, and undeveloped here.
Likewise the exploration of bereavement grief is a theme in female life – men a side note. For all the “bring men into contact with their feelings,” the “stiff upper lip” is as far as it goes and is expected to.
Realising she is not making headway, act two is simply berserk. One brother is a multi-billionaire, one a writer struggling in post-fame after leading a cult in his old family home; and the third unable to live indoors (how he survives in prison is not clear – even “open” ones are sort of indoor, Ms B).
An ex-wife demands credibility as well as credit, a sort of strange “Andrew Tate” thing happens in a cold bath and the needle returns to the start of the song so we all sing along as before – epilogue matching opening lines.
Never dull – Sam Prtichard ensures the direction is loose and quick-witted (the restaurant scene is acutely observed, as is the opening sequence). Merle Hensel adds kinetic interest with a revolving oblong, though the video projections feel an overused trope.
Kyle Soller (Jack) moves from wide-eyed to jaded cynic. Oliver Johnstone is bewildered as Marlow until his true colours emerge – survivor, twisted and misogynistic, the closest Birch gets to a conception of maleness.
Between, Stuart Thompson is Edmund, confused and under-explored despite being tantalisingly interested.
Strong support from Declan Conlon (John), Adelle Leonce as Esther / Marianne and Yanexi Enriquez as Rosa and the waitress we all recognise.
In a brave attempt to address a legion of conceptions and misconceptions about men. Birch does manage to confirm that men affect female lives far more greatly than women ever impact on male ones. That she cannot find out precisely why is less satisfying, but this is a bold attempt on the citadel.
3 stars.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner. Used by kind permission of the Almeida Theatre.