9.
BULL (May 17, 2013)
Mike
Bartlett’s BULL, another entry in the annual Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59,
takes its title from its concern with adult bullying and from the notion that
office politics in the modern corporate world resembles the cruel and
relentless world of the bullfighting ring. In fact, inside the program, but not
on the cover, the play carries the subtitle: “The Bullfight Play.”
The same dramatist is responsible for last season’s
COCK, which was known as The Cockfight Play, and was staged in a theatre
designed to look like a cockfighting arena. For some reason, however, Soutra Gilmore's much
discussed set for BULL, a magnetic 50-minute exercise in Darwinian ruthlessness,
brought here by England’s Sheffield Theatres, resembles a boxing ring more than
it does a bullfighting arena. The space in Theatre B has been completely
rearranged from its typical proscenium orientation (technically, “end stage” because
there is neither proscenium or wings) so that the center of the room contains a
raised, carpeted square surrounded on each side by metal railings holding glass
partitions in place. The ring is sandwiched between two raised sets of
bleachers, one on either side, and audience members either sit in these or
stand around the ring. The only prop is a water cooler in one corner. Overhead, a bank of four fluorescent lighting fixtures, arranged in a square, stands ready to illuminate the space. Before the play begins, the loudspeaker blares "Eye of the Tiger," and an announcer's voice, sounding like one you might hear at a boxing match, asks the audience to turn off all electronic devices.
Thomas (Sam Troughton) is nervously waiting for his
boss, Carter (Neil Stuke), to arrive with news as to which member of his office
team is to be fired. The slightly nerdy Thomas is accompanied by the beautiful
Isobel (Eleanor Matsuura), whose sculpturally prominent cheekbones, tightly
drawn back hair worn in a ponytail, and formfitting jacket and skirt suggest
knifelike efficiency and determination. They are joined by the buff and
handsome Tony (Adam James) and the game is on. Isobel and Tony stab away at Thomas,
belittling and disorienting him with sarcasm and various passive-aggressive maneuvers,
readying him for his confrontation with Carter; when that happens, he erupts in
frustration at his treatment and thereby seals his doom. The play ends as it
began, with Isobel and Thomas alone on the stage, and Thomas, like a dying
bull, flailing wildly at Isobel, the lithe and agile matador, until he crashes
into the water cooler, sending a stream of water across the floor, filling the
ring, as he lies face down in it. It is not clear if he’s dead or simply
unconscious, but Isobel, in a final gesture of magnanimous victory, places a
bottle of wine at his head and the play is over.
The play, which has been compared to THE LORD OF THE
FLIES because of the nastiness of its competitive characters, is ugly, of
course, but completely compelling, both because of the horrific cruelty
(softened by moments of artificial bonhomie) it uncovers in the workplace as
well as its precisely calibrated direction and acting. I mistakenly arrived at
the theatre an hour and a half before curtain time, so I found a couch in one
of the nearby Bloomingdale’s women’s clothing sections, and read the script,
which I’d received in my press packet. The script contains no stage directions
at all, and says there are no props; it doesn’t
even mention the water cooler, which makes the work of director Clare
Lizzimore that much more impressive. The acting of the four member cast, all
dressed in dark business attire, is in the best British tradition of perfectly
articulated, rapidly spoken, carefully timed speech, mingling a surface of hypocritical
good humor with an underlying tone of threat. No one at all is likable, neither
the aggressively defensive Thomas, nor his picking, stabbing, and lancing
coworkers, nor the business-first, humanity later Carter, but, despite the
obvious artificiality of the play’s concept and the fact that the situation enacted
(despite its underlying truth) would be unlikely in any real corporate setting,
the characters always manage to remain real and believable. The ensemble, in
other words, is priceless, and, if I single out Sam Troughton’s Thomas for
special commendation, it probably owes more to the demands of his role as the
bullied bull than because of his superior acting skills.
For some reason, I had trouble finding someone to see
this play with me, so I went alone. Perhaps it’s because the NY Times was less than pleased with the
play. Whatever the reason, BULL is the best new play and production (I don’t
count the transfer of NATASHA, etc.) I’ve seen so far this season. And that’s
no bull.
