Theatre Review: Ugly
Article published: Wednesday, October 6th 2010
Last week performing arts students at the Manchester College were treated to a preview of Leeds-based company Red Ladder’s latest play ‘Ugly’, a dystopian nightmare of a not too faraway future where resources are depleted and undesirables rot in ghettos. The performance was followed by an open discussion in which the actors and writer spoke to the audience on the play’s themes. MULE’s Michael Pooler went along…
Walking into the theatre you are met with the sound of a howling barren wind; faraway clocks tick in a frenzied chase, the growl of a lone hound is silenced by gunshots. In the shadows of this hinterland the surreal and jarring performance of ‘Ugly’ is set.
The world is divided into stratified social categories: the specials – people deemed worthy of protection and given access to what remains of the earth’s resources, nutrition and education; and the non-specials, those others who are cast aside and left to fend for themselves in the clutches of the ghetto.
Against a backdrop of militarised borders we are introduced to Woody, a young soldier; and his friend Ben, a well-groomed and foppish University student who together are illegally sneaking across the border into the “non-special” zone.
Dodging their way past gunfire and over barricades, the pair make their way into the non-special zone where they promptly go in search of a drug called ‘forget’ and cheap sex. Things quickly start to go awry.
Attacking hedonism
Black humour arrives in the form of their former school teacher Mrs Mason, once a ‘special’, but due to an alleged infringement of food rationing laws now languishes among the ‘non-specials’. An oddball of a character, Mrs M is the most believable of all: despite having mentally unravelled she is ironically the only one of them who retains any vestige of humanity. This she articulates with simplistic eloquence as she responds to Woody’s furious charges: “I think everybody is special Woody”/”If you are so special, then why do you come here to take forget?”
The hypocrisy of our world – with its destructive hedonistic pleasures and complete disregard for how we treat not only others but our own bodies – is clearly in the dock.
A lack of realism?
From the rehearsal of Ugly
There is however only one venture into realistic territory – through the character of Mert – and it is she who brings forth the most harrowing of themes: forced migration, exploitation, sexual abuse and genocide. There is an obscenity to her suffering that seems somewhat exaggerated, even contrived, but it carries a clear warning of the potential human catastrophe to be wrought by ecological meltdown.
In this sense the play is undeniably political although the message is at times difficult to discern. Rather, it can be perceived as a warning. This we see by comparing the characters: while Mert and Mrs M are ostensibly the victims of the repressive system which has been implemented in the wake of ecological disaster, Woody and Ben, despite their social superiority, appear no better off and are equally as alienated from one another and themselves.
The crafting of the characters is such that as a viewer you hold no sympathy for them whatsoever: desperate and deluded, they talk over one another in frantic exchanges without ever really listening. It is here that the script conveys with disconcerting success their complete disconnection from one another. In sum it is their disgusting narcissism – in stark contrast to the barren world they inhabit – which brings out with force the title theme, creating ugly and distorted versions of what human beings really are.
No connection
If the intended effect is to alienate the audience and show through exaggerations how the rampant individualism of capitalism threatens to destroy friendship, love and compassion, then this is a success. However throughout the performance you feel no attachment, nor do you really ever care what happens to the characters; and so it is difficult to imagine how a serious message can ever be conveyed without moving an audience, or at least some involvement with the protagonists.
It an took intervention from a drama tutor at the end of the performance shed light, illuminating what may have been the dramatic strategy of the playwright: “The difference between us and the characters is that we still have compassion” – and it is arguably here where the hope lies, for the jarring lack of any relationship between the characters is emphasized in the negative to show what we still have – and, at least for the moment, are capable of.
Despite this absence of pathos, there is brilliant linguistic inventiveness in the weirdly entertaining futuristic idiom; and in this, combined with the fantastical absurdism and powerful acting, a dark alternate world is brought to life. And while during the discussion it was noted that issues supposedly at the core of the playwright’s inspiration – such as climate change and capitalist exploitation – are never really brought to the fore, Ugly remains an original and thought-provoking work which deals in hyperbole and absurd theatrics to deliver a stark warning to the human race.
You can find out more about radical theatre company Red Ladder by visiting their website: http://www.redladder.co.uk/
‘Ugly’ will be toured around the country throughout autumn. Click here for the tour schedule
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