American playwright Annie Baker has been dividing audience opinion since she wrote the three hour long, Pulitzer prize-winning The Flick, which was critically acclaimed but apparently had some audience members walking out in boredom. Ms Baker tends to write a lack of dialogue that puts Pinter’s pauses to shame. I went into John, her new three-hour production at the National Theatre, expecting a long, tedious evening. Instead I was completely mesmerised and could not wait to see what happened next.
John is set in a bed and breakfast and also deals with guests interacting with their hosts. However, the similarity ends there as John is a much more humane and spiritual tale about relationships and how we connect with the people in our lives. Mertis runs a bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania which could be considered quaint if it weren’t for all the dolls lining the walls, staircases and any nook that can be found. A Christmas tree is already displayed despite it being only one week after Thanksgiving. The breakfast area is named Paris, and decorated like a French cafe´ with croissants for breakfast. Into this strange world comes Jenny and Elias, a young couple from Brooklyn who are stopping over on their way from Ohio. We sense from the start that all is not right, as prickly Elias seems to be constantly picking an argument with Jenny, yelling at her from upstairs, or demanding to know if she hates his loud eating and then accusing her of anti-Semitism. He is intent on seeing all the historical sites Gettysburg has to offer, while Jenny has to duck out due to debilitating period pains. After an aborted trip around the town, Elias goes off on a ghost tour of a cemetery, leaving Jenny alone with the sympathetic but unusual Mertis. It is at this point that we start to learn more about who these people are. Mertis has a husband, George, whom we never see, as he is too ill, of what we never find out. Jenny writes questions for a quiz show. Mertis kindly invites Jenny to join her for dinner with her blind friend Genevieve. After much wine is drunk, more revelations emerge, but always eked out throughout the play, emerging naturally as the characters eventually feel like revealing them.
Although it sounds like not much happens, everything happens as we discover the truth about Elias and Jenny’s relationship, hear about her dread fear of her childhood doll Samantha, a replica of which sits on a shelf in the bed and breakfast. Mertis asks both Elias and Jenny separately if they ever feel watched, to which they both have very different responses. This is a house which may be haunted, as Christmas tree lights mysteriously turn on and off and a player piano spontaneously bursts into song. And why won’t Mertis let the young couple sleep in the Jackson room?
The cast are nothing less than extraordinary. American actress Marylouise Burke who plays Mertis is a highly-experienced stage performer who is completely unknown here but won’t be after this. She embodies the elderly and quirky Mertis so completely in her every move and slightly sing song way of speaking. We are fascinated watching her slowly climb the stairs or set breakfast, happy in her routines, yet clearly harbouring so much more beneath the surface. June Watson is superb as the caustic and outspoken Genevieve, who may be a bit psychotic or a bit psychic, it’s never clear which, but it is unimportant to her friendship with Mertis who accepts her as she is. Tom Motherdale as Elias and Anneika Rose as Jenny were also excellent, inhabiting the moments of silence as much as the words in their painful interactions with each other.
This production feels like an interactive experience where the audience is totally immersed in the world of the play, drawn in bit by bit through clues about the characters’ lives, droplets of information said in passing or blurted out suddenly. This is theatre at its finest, don’t miss it.
To book tickets click here or call 020 7452 3000.
Reviewed by Lydia Parker.
Image: JOHN (Anneika Rose as Jenny and Tom Mothersdale as Elias). Image by Stephen Cummiskey.