In a Berkoff double-bill special, a bench on a pier within Trafalgar Studios’ flexible and intimate Studio 2 plays host to starkly vivid scenes depicting the beginning, and ending, of a life shared. Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses are presented one after the other leaving the audience to contemplate the decline of what had started off as a rather inauspicious but lusty romance.

Berkoff’s postmodernist stream of consciousness dialogue gives rise to a humorous moment here and there, but the plays mainly rely on innuendo and double entendre rather than witty repartee. The audience tends to laugh at the ability of the playwright to capture the depressing quintessence of a modern-day relationship; flowery metaphor gives way to grim platitudes as we bear witness to deprecating realities of ‘love’ and whatever it entails. Familiar thoughts and anxieties are voiced by the couple – ‘everyman,’ ‘everywoman’ or ‘everyperson’ types – who seem satisfied with their dissatisfaction, willingly plodding along dutifully fulfilling the prerequisites necessary to constitute a co-existence of some sort, but far from thriving.

Emily Bruni and Shaun Dooley are well-cast for the roles; Dooley’s raw energy in the sex-crazed ‘Man’ contrasts nicely with the silence and stillness of Bruni’s ‘Woman.’ Indeed, this is a performance of contrasts: the sometimes overbearing shouting and energy of the first, almost violent play juxtaposes unbearably with the totally static monologue-filled second. The contrast in pace totally diminishes tension built and emotions invested in the characters over the duration of the first play to near-bathetic effect.

The set – though basic – is most effective. The lone bench acts almost as a third character – a vehicle of the relationship’s progression, and a constant in a piece all about change. Upstage projections of the sea and lingering sound effects of rushing waves and the screams and laughter of a pier amusement park despite the sudden downturn in the couple’s fortunes bring about a reminder of how, whilst we may change, the world stays the same.

It is a shame that the production team did not think to explore the possibilities when it came to the text – for characters and a situation that, according to director Nigel Harman, could be applicable to any person, it is somewhat disappointing to see the limitations of heteronormativity at work within the play’s direction.

All in all, then, an interesting performance about change and contrasts: a gripping first play with cheap humour and gratuitous nudity added in to try to compensate for a slightly lacklustre and dry second.

Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses is playing Trafalgar Studios until 5 November. For more information and tickets, see AGT tickets website.

Photo: Marc Brenner