Cheap chairs, a pumping soundtrack, the overhead rumble of a train introduces us to Beyond Ourselves, blurbed as ‘a new, dark, surreal comedy’ and it is all of those, writes Michael Holland.
To be fair, the comedy came in flashes between the darkness of a group of recent performing arts graduates trying to forge careers in what they trained for while escaping the humdrum reality graduates face in an industry where only a minute percentage are ever in the work they love.
Written and directed by Andrew Muir, who himself has forged a career in theatre, Beyond Ourselves depicts just how it is for these newcomers: asked to work for nothing, sometimes playing to no one, with rarely any prospects and very rarely an agent in the audience. But this is often more agreeable than the boring, skint lives these aspiring actors lead.
The six newbies are nicely divided in to all the necessary shapes and colours to keep the ever-watchful public happy, plus, remaining nameless to reflect their position in their industry.
They arrive at a condemned building where someone with half an idea convinces half of them that they will create art – from nothing: no script, no narrative, no set, just an idea that they will manifest something from his nothing.
The other half, however, think he is a bit of a fraud and tell him as much. The ideas man (Jake Rayner Blair) has them walking around: ‘Make the space your own,’ he tells them.
‘Shall we piss in it like a cat?’ Asks one (Eddie Drummond) in all seriousness. ‘Like a cat takes ownership?’
They are all very different with different ambitions and backgrounds. Callum Diaz wants to play a gangster; India Pignatiello only wants to be in Eastenders; Thomas O’Neill claims he wants to walk out of this façade but doesn’t, and some want to follow the leader and see where it goes.
Gradually, the three female and three males agree on an idea that involves a café and a sofa, and very quickly they realise they are recreating Friends, so decide to take the story into space.
There is much talk of Stanislavski’s method acting from a ‘given circumstances’ start, and Beckett gets a few mentions, and this play could well have come from a combination of those two and Harold Pinter locked up for a week with just absinthe and LSD to get the creative juices flowing. But for me, that means I spent quite some time wondering what was going on or where it was going, while simultaneously enjoying the confusion.
This Ardent Theatre Company production is actually cast with new graduates all on Ardent’s 18-month programme of workshops and paid full Equity wages, which makes this play very worthwhile.
I believe that I eventually worked out that the message of Beyond Ourselves is that the industry is a tough one, but persevere and no matter how low you feel, keep looking up at the stars.
Union Theatre, 229 Union St, London SE1 0LX until 12th November at 7.30pm. Admission: £10, £8.
Booking: www.uniontheatre.biz.
