Ed Theakston
Glasshouse is unorthodox to the extreme, and is (perhaps deliberately) not an easy piece to watch. There is no distinction between audience and actor, beyond the lights that pick out the performers, as everyone sits around a rather large dining table together.
Seated with 40 or so other spectators, as though all guests at a dinner party with a glass of red wine and piece of bread each, the five actors join the dinner table last, attended to by one stony-faced waitress. At this stage you’d be forgiven for thinking it was nothing more than a contemporary take on the recognisable dinner-party set up, with the Musak completing the atmosphere. While that is what begins, it quickly changes.
The performers start by having a largely mundane and wholly middle class conversation about the quality of wines and the trivialities of life. Clichés like the advantageous smell of baking bread when selling your house rear their ugly heads before long, and while somewhat entertaining the conversation is nothing new. The waitress circles, placing another piece of bread on each of the actor’s plates and topping up wine glasses. This conversation then loops a number of times, with no noticeable differences apart from the conversation being cut slightly shorter each time.
After a few repetitions, the conversation starts to disintegrate and along with it so does our grip on reality. The waitress apparently runs out of bread, and so brings a variety of other things round for the actors to eat – from sponges to chillies and raw eggs, the actors bizarrely continue eating as if all were perfectly normal. Reality is further deconstructed as the show continues in a rather stomach-turning sequence of events which might make you fear for the cleanliness of your clothing, particularly if you end up sat next to one of the actors (probably best to try to avoid this).
The problem with this show is that it seems to somehow lack drive. Although it has a good pace and reaches a few nice climaxes, it doesn’t seem to have a very clear purpose motivating it. Although perhaps attempting to examine deconstruction, it flounders by becoming repetitive and predictable. Possibly trying to break down the animalistic or consumerist tendencies of the human race, somehow it fails to really follow through on these notes so doesn’t wholly convince the audience that it is actually trying to say anything about these moralistic concepts.
Unfortunately, some of the acting is also rather demonstrational which doesn’t help the audience to find a connection with a conversation that is repeated too many times over. That said, all performers must have iron stomachs to be able to keep down what they consume before the audience’s eyes.
Although Glasshouse contains some interesting ideas and tries to do something new with live performance, it is deliberately post-modernistic and laden with theatrical references that actually leave it rather hollow. Sadly, it’s lack of direction means it doesn’t succeed in leaving the audience feeling anything more than mild disgust and slight confusion.
Glasshouse played at Battersea Arts Centre. Further information on the show can be found on the Battersea Arts Centre website.