Rajiv Joseph’s 2017 play makes its UK premiere at the Royal Court, under the direction of Lyndsey Turner. The production is tightly wound, set almost entirely in a tunnel beneath the city where three hungry and poor young men are seduced into training to kill the Archduke Franz Ferdiand, an action which was a spark point for the start of WW1. Told today, in the shadow of rising far right extremism, and more and more disenfranchised young men taking up these extreme views, the play takes the form of an allegory for the current situation.
It is darkly funny; we see these men who are at times silly, at times terrifying, slowly descend into following a powerful “strongman” who gives them someone to blame for their misfortune. They are at once hungry and desperate young men one can empathise with, and vile monsters.
While the story felt quite prescient, the portrayal of women in it did feel problematic. The only female character is an older woman who feeds them and leans toward what are read as witch-like tendencies (actually, slavic superstition and traditional medicine), and the women these young men talk about are merely objects. Of course this is needed for the story, but it nonetheless bristled me. Interestingly, the audience at the Royal Court for this production also felt unusually male-heavy. I’m not sure what this says, or if it is a good thing…