How (not) To Live In Suburbia
Annie Siddons opens her show with a lyrical love letter to down and dirty London while a collage of the metropolitan images play out behind her. It’s an effective introduction to not only her play, but the elegance and economy of her prose, something she uses sparingly throughout this deceptively complex slice of confessional theatre. What feels like a cheeky nod to the opening of Woody Allen’s Manhattan is quickly and cleverly subverted, as it emerges that what she describes is an idealised memory of a mythical place where artists, writers and actors frolicked with unicorns in latte serving coffee shops surrounded by heaving bin bags and multi-cultural theatre groups. The horrors of suburban Twickenham, where she found herself marooned, are similarly heightened, as a place of tedium crowded out by greenery, rugby shirts and the tyranny of book and toddler groups. With a combination of the spoken word and sharply done skits on film, Siddons slips in early and easy laughs, comparing and contrasting the two environments.
And there are laughs aplenty, but it’s something that could have become tiresome very quickly, had the play really been about moving out of London. Fortunately, the it isn’t really about that at all. Twickenham is only ten miles from the centre of London – which is only four miles more than New Cross – and less than half an hour on the train. It would be like moving from the Unthank Road to New Catton – inconvenient, but not insurmountable. Siddons’s profound feelings of isolation were never about geographical proximity, so much as the shitstorm – her word - in her life. Estranged from her partner and having to look after two children (tellingly represented by two olive bushes that she staggers about town with) her life has moved on, and not in the direction she had planned. New Cross represents that which she has lost, and Twickenham that which she is stuck with, but her message is surely that this could have happened anywhere, and to anyone, and that the consequences can be grimly corrosive.
In one of the many toe curling filmed inserts, we see Siddons cast out of the book club she tried so desperately to fit in with. In a horribly funny doorstep scene, we see book club chief Vicki stumble her way through her sorry excuse for rejection, while Siddons dies a little inside. We immediately sympathise with Siddons, but also secretly suspect she probably did try too hard, and probably was a little overbearing. It’s just one of many key scenes where the audience was caught between the three way axis of Siddons the narrator, Siddons the character (as played by Sarah Moore) and Siddons the on screen reconstruction, and is left to piece together a fractured narrative from the unreliable evidence of all three.
Careful to distinguish between depression and loneliness, Siddons images the latter as a heaving, sweaty walrus, forever nagging, bullying and oppressing as circumstances erode her ability to deal with life. Siddons explores the downward spiral of feeling isolated and alone. She is a victim of circumstance, but is brutally honest about her complicity in her downfall and painfully open about how she dealt (sometimes very badly) with something beyond her control. Tellingly, when she finally makes her way to Shangri-La – an evening on the town to celebrate her birthday – her beloved London falls horribly short, ironically offering the opportunity for self-reflection and possible resolution. Thankfully, that resolution avoids easy answers, instead positing baby steps towards recovery that has more to do with accepting who you have become and being at ease with that, than it is about your postcode. It’s an uncomfortable conclusion, but one that is quietly profound.
This is a play that follows an established path of confessional theatre, where the impact of the work is intimately associated with it not just ringing, but being, true. I was reminded of Juliette Burton’s exploration of eating disorders, or Richard Gadd’s harrowing account of rape, or just about anything Bryony Kimmings has ever done. Siddons’s play functions by eliciting empathy for the performer, rather than for the performance. It works, because (as far as the audience knows) it is true. My only nagging doubt is whether this makes for good theatre, or merely a cathartic experience. Is the power of the piece rooted in the bravery of the retelling, rather than in how well that telling is crafted? Does that even matter? I remain unsure, but had I subsequently discovered I had been watching fiction (and I still don’t really know) the impact of Siddons’s play would certainly have been diminished, and there’s something not quite right about that.
