Review: Beats

Originality on the stage should be nurtured, in earnest, wherever it is found. The tired old practice of ushering the same theatrical ghosts into our theatres –  Shakespeare, Beckett, Pinter et al. – gets dull no matter how you dress it up or dress it down, modernize or re-hash.

Yet Beats, an original play by Emily Warren, was a disappointing piece of new writing.

It wasn’t obviously derivative or interested in a particularly hackneyed area of life –  depression and institutionalization aren’t the bread and butter of an average play – but Beats was predictable and meandering in a way that made it feel like they were.

Stylistically, the production was compelling. The electronic score composed by Matt Huxley was pitched perfectly between evocative and unobtrusive. The sound design was similarly faultless.

The set and costume team deserve extended praise for their witty and stylish take on the wardrobes and homes of a group of young British artists in the nineties.

The female leads, playing sisters –  Lauren Magee and Phoebe Hames –  were natural and compelling. Lauren Magee was fragile without being brittle; sardonic but not embittered. Phoebe Hames was luminous as an artist perched between her perceived successes and failures.

The major fault was in the heavy-handedness of the plot. If you choose to depict mental illness you owe it to the audience not to trivialize an issue that is serious to a great number of people.

A doctor whose central solution to the problem of the main character’s illness seems to amount to little more than ‘get over it’ was unnecessary and unpleasant; particularly as the character seemed to be making no comment about the medical profession at large.

The suggestion that the conclusion made about the efficacy of medication also seemed largely irresponsible. Making the lead character’s final moments of the play revolve largely around a bottle of pills when drugs have barely been mentioned smacked of a last-ditch effort at sensationalism.

It would be a cliché to say that Beats is a triumph of style over substance. Some of the dialogue, particularly between the sisters, was fresh and dynamic but the overall structure of the play was unfocused.

Beats should be commended for the way it brought a collective of talented artists together to make original art (it would be great to see other production’s follow suit) –  it’s just a shame that the material didn’t live up to the promise of the play’s exceptional artistic design.