You can understand the reasoning. Since the felicitous combination of the Handspring Puppet Company and designer Rae Smith’s imagination has made War Horse, which originated in the National Theatre, such an enduring hit, why not repeat the pairing for a new play? Anyone expecting another helping of family-friendly drama with anthropomorphic animals is in for a surprise, as this is an elliptical, elegiac, gay love story set in South Africa.
There’s one crucial similarity with War Horse, and that’s the supremacy of the exquisitely articulated puppets. There are five: two old men, two young men and a dog, manipulated with such tenderness by the ensemble it’s as if they’re fellow cast members.
I was surprised the puppets didn’t take a bow at the end, so convincing are they at conveying the essence of Mr A and Mr B as ailing eighty-somethings in Port Elizabeth in 2036, and their health-packed younger selves in the "perfect summer" of 1971.
The wrinkled puppet face of defiantly upright Mr A, as he looks on his emphysema-wracked partner of 67 years, is unbearably moving. As a meditation on ageing and the pain of losing a loved one, writer/director Neil Bart-lett, together with Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler of Handspring, create some overwhelmingly affecting moments, as the men grapple with the financial, legal and emotional aspects of wrapping up a life together. Elsewhere, though, there’s a frustrating sense of missed opportunity as the narrative wafts, sometimes confusingly, around the sketchy scenes. The setting is nominally South Africa, but could as easily have been Sweden or Switzerland for all the specificities provided.
It can’t have been easy being gay during the regime of the hardline National Party, but no detail of this is shared. In fact, we learn precious little of this extraordinarily long partnership — what was the reaction of the men’s families? — but hear lots we could have lived without from Adjoa Andoh as an omnipurpose MC. As she droned on, my eyes kept returning to the silent, stoic, absorbing, wooden figure of Mr A in his neat checked shirt. What was he really thinking? The humans might do all the talking, but it’s the puppets who have all the answers here.
Until November 18. Box Office: 020 7452 3000.
Or You Could Kiss Me
National Theatre: Cottesloe
South Bank, SE1 9PX
