There was a real atmosphere of anticipation at the Soho Theatre last night. Happily, Philip Ridley's new play Piranha Heights more than delivered the goods.
I don't often laugh out loud in the theatre but from about the halfway point I could hardly stop myself. In fact, several other people in the audience really couldn't stop themselves and more-or-less had to jam their fists into their mouths to maintain decorum.
Apart from the black comedy what impressed me most was how Ridley sustains a 90-minute drama so effectively in a single location (a small living room) in real time. I was also struck by how, as with Pinter, though the action and dialogue are not strictly naturalistic, it all feels very truthful. That, I suppose, is why (also like Pinter) it's very funny - even when you're wincing.
This was my first experience of Philip Ridley. Given the controversy surrounding Mercury Fur, it will be interesting to see how critics respond. I'm pretty confident, however, that most people who see Piranha Heights will, like me, still be thinking about it the next morning. And they'll still be smiling.
Update (20/05/08): Just looked up the etymology of 'piranha' and see that it comes from the Portuguese pira (fish) + sainha (tooth). More interestingly, it's described in the OED as both 'gregarious' and 'aggressive' - an unusual combination in an animal (other than men)?
Update (27/05/08): Reading the (mostly positive) reviews of this play makes me realise once and for all that I lack the powers of high-octane précis be a critic. Here's Lyn Gardner (take a deep breath before reading):
"...the actors attack their meaty roles like hungry tigers, and beneath the bitterly funny black humour is an almost wistful sense of the human need for kinship and family, and a recognition that fantasy is both a refuge and a weapon for the mortally wounded in a world built on lies."
And (another deep breath) Sam Marlowe:
"The extravagance of Ridley's dark vision suggests a dangerously confused society in which individuals seize on random gobbets of semi-digested information and use them to construct their own personal narrative. And, having chosen to believe their self-constructed myth, they defend it with all the blind determination of the religious extremist, regardless of how crazy it might seem. It's an environment in which faith is paramount, and yet it can be placed in anything from a conspiracy theory to a fairytale, and where violent stories are absorbed from infancy."
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