REVIEW: Stitching, White Bear Theatre ✭✭✭

Stitching

White Bear Theatre

1st October 2015

3 stars

NOTE: This review contains spoilers.

In 2009 Stitching was banned in Malta, for the following reasons:

1. The play blasphemed against the state religion (Catholicism).

2. The play demonstrated obscene contempt for the victims of Auschwitz.

3. The offered an “encyclopaedic review of dangerous sexual perversions leading to sexual servitude”.

4. One of the play’s characters delivered a “eulogy” to Fred and Rose West.

5. The play references the abductions, sexual assault and murder of children.

Simply reading that list is enough to make you want to bathe in Clorox. But it does not simply shock for shocks’ sake. The audience walkouts during the play’s 2002 run at the Edinburgh Fringe prompted its writer, Anthony Neilson, to say:

“I feel bad that audiences walked out, but I can’t write for cowards. If something shocks me, I don't just walk away from it, I ask myself why I am shocked by it. It is not my job to tell audiences a rose is beautiful. Everybody knows that. My job is to see if there is a way to make a turd beautiful."

The “turd” in question is the dysfunctional relationship between a young couple, Abby (Sarah Harkins) and Stu (Adam Howden). The action alternates between two periods in their life; one where they are deliberating over whether to keep the child that Abby’s carrying, another in which they engage in an escalating sexual struggle, with Abby acting as a sex worker with Stu as her increasingly obsessed client.

It is this latter period that attracted the ire of the Maltese Government, as Abby and Stu explore sexual power and perversion through a series of intense conversations and physical encounters. The game they play is soul-destroying, but addictive, and these moments serve to establish the existential blackness at the hearts of these characters. With each leap into their chaotic emotional battlefield they hint at how badly they want it all to end. It does, but only after the act of self-mutilation to which the play’s title refers.

In the other period of their lives, Abby and Stu dissect the underlying problems of their relationship, often to darkly comic effect. In the opening scene, they write statements and pose questions to each other on large pads of paper – suggested to be a common strategy of theirs – culminating in Stu writing that “all our problems come down to communication”. Later, Stu has a rare happy moment when he sings and dances to Queen’s ‘I Want To Break Free’, only for Abby to turn off the music without warning, citing it as “shit”.

Stitching is at its best when it explores the banality of the couple’s failings as partners, arguing over answers to a compatibility quiz and questioning whether their constant fights will make them terrible parents. One struggles to associate these versions of Abby and Stu with their taboo pushing, often nightmarish counterparts. The distinction is clarified by a late act twist, which reveals that their bizarre game has an expiatory quality. Contrary to what had been implied, their sexual encounters take place after the birth of their son, Daniel, who died in an accident that Abby feels responsible for.

Much hinges on the believability of this revelation, and specifically the notion that the fabricated sex worker/client dynamic offers an insight into the couple’s grief. Yet the cause of their son’s death isn’t clarified, the origins of their game are not discussed, and we never witness the couple having a lucid discussion about their shared trauma. Consequently grief appears like nothing more than a malevolent force which taps into their fractured psyches, a notion supported by a disturbing dream sequence in which Stu flits around the stage proclaiming it to be “Daniel’s time”. In turn, the idea that Abby and Stu’s grim sexual exploits were a performance raises a number of questions about the sincerity of their dark revelations, which was more frustrating than fascinating. Themes of escalation and obsession become heavily tethered to the play’s concept of grief, which I believe to be built on unsatisfactory foundations.

Sarah Harkins and Adam Howden are fascinating stage presences; under Pip Minnithorpe’s direction they act as caged animals, pacing round the filthy bed that houses the bulk of the action. The minimalist set and the close proximity between the audience and actors – it is staged in the round, and you are never more than a few metres away from the actors – does the play a great service, for it seamlessly drags us in to the irrevocable cycle of recrimination and anger. Jack Weir’s lighting was effective in creating an aura of encroaching darkness, and the music used during scene transitions was aptly chosen, although the popularity of some of the songs occasionally seemed out of keeping with the couple’s self-imposed isolation.

Harkins’ Abby treads a believable line between impulsive and pragmatic, making her a compellingly erratic figure. In turn, Howden is very convincing as the emotionally stunted Stu, and at his best he skilfully hints at the troubled upbringing that mediates his attitudes to sex and parenthood. There are perhaps too few tender exchanges between the performers, given the play’s late revelation, and at times the intensity of their arguments is a little static. Nevertheless, I am full of admiration for the passion and dedication with which Harkins and Howden conducted a number of very difficult scenes. In particular, an extended section in which they pull back each other’s hair and whisper bitterly in each other’s ears must have felt utterly devastating, yet it was a highly effective means of deconstructing both parties’ attitude towards sexual servitude. Ultimately, although I left feeling slightly annoyed by the ambiguities underpinning Abby and Stu’s behaviour, the quality performances will help motivate you to try and figure them out.

Stitching is an interesting and challenging play, undermined by a late twist, but still engaging. There are a number of moments which will take some people aback, and one or two lines will court controversy, which is unsurprising given the play’s chequered performance history. Nevertheless, the strong cast and superb staging are enough to justify giving it a go, though there is no doubt the play will elicit a wide range of reactions. Stitching runs at the White Bear Theatre until 17 October 2015