“It’s 9pm and I’m waiting for my friend. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
So begins Tim Crouch’s exploration of friendship, growing up and responsibility, in his new work that opened the Almeida Festival of experimental theatre last night.
And so it continues. It’s a constant refrain from Andy (Andy Smith), protagonist and narrator. “I’m waiting for my friend” punctuates this hour long piece even when his friend Tim has turned up with a bottle of wine and flowers. Sometimes it’s followed by “and I’m worried about him”, sometimes it isn’t. Are we in Waiting for Godot territory? Who bloody knows….
Here’s the deal. Crouch plays Tim, himself yet not himself, and Andy is played by Crouch’s friend Andy Smith, who is himself yet not himself. Confused? You will be….
Crouch wrote this play specifically to act with his old mate Andy, a theatre theorist who now lives in Oslo with his wife and kid (another is on the way and we were warned that if he didn’t appear tonight it was because he’d had to make a dash to be at the birth). Andy can’t act and it doesn’t matter. Mostly he sits in a chair with a script in front of him – after first taking his shoes off as it’s what they do in Norway – and alternates between talking to us, the audience, and ‘acting’ with Tim. He stares at us. He pauses. He pauses again. He pauses yet again. There’s an awful lot of pauses in this piece.
Crouch’s theatre has always been provocative, unusual, thought-provoking and, according to some, ridiculously pretentious. I’d never seen his work before, and I must admit that I was left slightly chilly by this piece. It didn’t help that there were obviously a lot of Crouch groupies in the audience who cracked up at the hint of a funny line and positively wet themselves when Andy asked us all to turn to the person next to us, shake hands and say ‘pleased to meet you’ (he’d just made a feeble joke about someone going to a church and mistaking ‘peace be with you’ for ‘pleased to meet you’ – cue rafter-high laughter).
So, to recap, we have Andy playing the Andy that Tim thinks Andy is, and Tim playing…himself? How Tim thinks Tim is? It does all get a little confusing, but once you’ve sort of grasped the characters and their relationships to the real people, it gets….well….even more confusing, but not in a wholly bad way.
The premise is that Tim hasn’t seen Andy for a few years and that they’re going to catch up. Andy is waiting for Tim. He’s waiting for him in real time and he’s waiting for him to grow up. Andy has the wife and child, he has a community he belongs to, he even has the self-possession to take his shoes off before he starts talking for fuck’s sake! He’s more or less a bloody grown up!!
Tim, on the other hand is, as he says himself, ’emotionally incontinent’ (“those are the words that are being slung around”). He gabbles, he has fits of harmless violence (he suddenly smashes the flowers he’s brought for Andy against the wall at the back of the stage), he mistrusts the little boys hanging around on the green outside who seem to be growing into a gang, he’s convinced the EDL are “planning a sort of Kristallnacht in the Chorley Road.” He’s a mess, but an active mess. “Fuck’s sake Andy,” is his mantra, like a nagging kid pulling at Andy’s trouser leg. He’s childish and needy – “Come and be with me” he pleads, as he sits on the sofa alone – “I am lost here. Move my arms and legs for me. You do it, you fucking do it!”
Andy, in comparison, is Zen-like. Inscrutable. Sitting on his chair with his script with a quiet smile on his face. In control. But he’s passive – not a mess, but passive.
How have these friends drifted so far apart? How do they come together again? Andy quotes a French philosopher who ‘suggests that love is a successful struggle against separation.’ And it’s clear that these two do love each other, do care for each other, and in the middle of the play they do come together and have a physical josh in the middle of the stage, involving water and tickling. Then they move apart. It’s a meeting in the middle of Tim’s frantic ‘doing’ and Andy’s equally frantic ‘thinking’. And I can’t think of a better way to show this than in a tickling bout.
Crouch also explores community in the piece, mostly through a series of quotes that Andy issues, but also by actions. Andy is grounded, centred in the two communities he lives in, and interested, through his work, in the dynamics of community theatre. Tim is mistrustful of everyone, is drifting, is lesser than Andy.
If fact, this piece seems more and more like a love letter from Crouch to his mate Andy. He’s saying to him “You’re a grown up now. You’ve made it. You’ve got somewhere. I’m nowhere.” It’s a paean to friendship and a piece loaded with self-loathing. Andy’s “I am waiting for my friend. I’m worried something has happened to him” makes sense as he is waiting for his friend to catch up with him in the evolutionary stakes, and he’s worried for him because he’s still way behind.
WHAT: what happens to hope at the end of the evening
WHERE: Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London
WHEN: Until 18 July, various days and times
TICKETS: £15/£10
FOR MORE INFORMATION: CLICK HERE: www.almeida.co.uk/event/hope
WOULD I SEE IT AGAIN: no. or yes. or maybe. who knows?
Three stars
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