The Events
For a seemingly small play – two actors, 90 minutes, no interval – David Greig's The Events has a big reputation. Premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013, it's won a Fringe Fest award, the approval of the Guardian (making the newspaper's theatrical top ten for 2013) and a transfer to New York in 2015.
Claire is a priest living in a quiet seaside village. She's liberal and progressive and her female partner Catriona makes yurts. The multicultural choir that Claire leads becomes the target for a fatal mass shooting by 'The Boy', a disillusioned and disengaged young man. Inspired, in part, by the tragic shootings committed by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway, The Events isn't as sensational as it sounds. Instead, the play examines the impact on Claire's life after she witnesses 'the events'.
Derbhle Crotty is excellent as Claire, once the centre of her community but now vulnerable and bewildered. She gradually unravels – hair unpinned, dog collar missing – as she struggles with survivor's guilt and unanswered questions. Why did she escape The Boy's “one last bullet”? What motivated such a horrific, xenophobic attack? And what if, as Catriona asks, bad things just happen? Clifford Samuel is versatile and magnetic. He plays the characters surrounding Claire: not only The Boy and Catriona, but also a therapist and an unrepentant rightwing politician.
Each performance of The Events is supported by a local community choir. Tonight, Manchester's all-female, non-audition She Choir join the production, led by pianist Magnus Gilljam. There's a rousing version of Paul Simon's Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes, a Norwegian coffee song and some ritualistic chanting. Although they're performers, She Choir are not professionals. When not singing, they're seated at the back, watching the actors and the audience while nervously sipping from water bottles or fussing with vintage dresses. That self-awareness adds a Brechtian tension.
Co-produced by the Actors Touring Company, the Young Vic, Brageteatret and Schauspielhaus Wien, The Events is a European voice in contemporary drama. As with much of his work, David Greig's script is dense with words, ideas and references. The Boy rants about defending his blood tribe, Viking warriors and a woman he once saw in a red miniskirt. Elsewhere, Claire discusses her knowledge of mushrooms and learns about empathy impairment. It's a smart play that demands concentration, and its moral ambiguities stimulate debate.
The Events is staged inside Number One First Street, a gleaming office building so new you can smell the fresh carpet tiles. Unlike recent HOME production Angel Meadow, this is not a site-specific performance. It's a play happening inside an office because HOME's new, erm, home is expected to be complete in spring 2015. The performance space is simply a rectangle of open plan office space, with the audience seated around (no, not on office chairs). However, it's proof that theatre happens wherever we want it to happen, and is an enticing sample of bigger and bolder work to come at HOME.