Review: After The End, Sainsbury Centre For Visual Arts, 01/11/2012

A tiny unused room in the basement of the Sainsbury Centre seems an unlikely location for a UEA Drama production, but last night The Tab joined an intimate audience of spellbound theatre goers to experience By Any Other Name’s (led by student Rob Henderson) astonishing  production of Dennis Kelly’s ‘After The End’.

All we had been told to expect was a post-apocalyptic comedy, what we received was a piece both breathtakingly ambitious yet also innately claustrophobic.

The play revolves solely around two friends, Mark and Louise, who have taken shelter in a bunker post nuclear-apocalypse and have only a few tins of chilli con carne and a game of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ for company.

It examines how humanity reacts to disaster through their eyes and provides a deep psychological examination of its two leads as they each move closer to their own breaking point.

In recent years, many productions have shelved the traditional end-on stage in favour of staging a production in the round or in traverse (the action taking place in the middle of the performance area with the audience sat on either side, facing eachother) and this can run the risk of feeling gimmicky.

The setting in traverse for ‘After The End’, however, added to the intensity of the piece by placing the audience in the bunker, which forced us to contemplate how we ourselves would react in that situation.

By having the actors literally at our feet we did not feel as if we were watching a conventional drama piece, but a genuine interaction between two people in a traumatic situation.

This kind of theatre demand so much from its actors, and not only did first year Drama students Luke Rogan and Gemma Barnett rise to the challenge magnificently, they managed to produce some of the most compelling and mature acting The Tab has ever seen on stage.

‘After The End’ had a short three week rehearsal period and this actually was to the piece’s benefit- the dialogue felt fresh, raw, urgent and completely natural.

In addition, Rogan and Barnett were able to portray some truly disturbing scenes, involving violence, emotional abuse and sexual assault in a way that felt shocking yet not gratuitous.

Being so physically close to the actors meant they could never let their guard down, and the subtle reactions we saw from both Rogan and Barnett allowed us to feel completely immersed in their characters.

‘After The End’ is not an easy piece to watch. Members of the audience were physically recoiling in horror at some scenes and when we left the performance space, most of us found ourselves lost for words.

The best naturalistic theatre lets the audience suspend its disbelief, and for that short hour and a half that felt like an eternity, we were locked in a nuclear bunker forced to not only confront Mark and Louise’s choices, but to examine what our own might have been.

UEA Drama has a reputation for producing fantastic drama with compelling actors- in the past few years alone Matt Smith (Doctor Who) and Matt Milne (currently starring in Downton Abbey) have both graduated from UEA.

If ‘After The End’ is anything to judge by, Luke Rogan, Gemma Barnett and Rob Henderson each deserve to follow in their footsteps and The Tab is eager to see what they can deliver next.