Sydney Reviews

In the third act of Enda Walsh’s bleak, dystopian play, Arlington, a character says to another, something along the lines of “can you make it funnier. It sounds dull.”

Unfortunately, that’s a fair description of the play.

The play begins with a woman, Isla, waiting out her days in a heavily monitored tower block. She is under constant surveillance. Her only companion, for want of another word, is an anonymous young man who records her life and her stories, providing a soundtrack to her captivity through atrocious love songs. He likes her forehead but detests her feet.

In the second act, a mute young girl occupies the same, sterile cell as Isla. For what seems an eternity she sits immobile before melting into a puddle on the floor. She then begins to pace the room like a caged animal, in repetitive, monotonous action, building into a frantic fandango, flinging herself to and fro in repetitive and monotonous choreography. This dancing dumb-show becomes interminable, seemingly based on a demonic possession riff.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, either she goes, or I do. Some patrons beat her to it. She finally jumps out the window, insipidly. Blessed release. I stay.

The third act begins with the anonymous young surveillance man, bloodied and battered inside the apartment. He’s on a countdown to a hiding, illustrated by a bizarre quick change sequence, without sequins but replete with corset and frock. What the frock?

Apparently, he helped Isla escape. Torture him, torture the audience, with audio and lighting overload. And a ten minute overrun of the advertised ninety minutes. Tick... tick... fizz.

Thematically, Kafka comes to mind. Orwell, of course. A bit of Beckett. However, Kafka was compelling, Orwell awesome, and Beckett brilliant.

With Enda, you’re just waiting for it to end.