The Rage of Narcissus, The Pleasance review ★★★★★ by Ifan Llewelyn
All too often London audiences shuffle into theatres, plonk themselves down on seats and prepare for a few hours of passive viewing. We sit reclined as spectators, ready for the performers to do the heavy lifting. From the moment the house lights go down, and the stage lights go up in The Rage of Narcissus, we’re asked to sit up, engage and to make “every effort possible” to believe this piece. As the minimal mirrored backdrop suggests, the audience is as integral to this work as anything else. Daniel Goldman’s translation of Sergio Blanco’s astute work is an engaging evening of theatre that asks a lot from its audience but gives back ten-fold in return. It’s a challenging yet cunning tale of sex, murder and autofiction.
Having informally greeted his audience, a causally dressed Sam Crane stands in spotlight onstage below a television screen with a quote from Fernando Pessoa’s ‘Autopsychography’. The thematics of ‘the poet’, ‘pain’ and to ‘pretend’ arms us as to how we ingest this evening of theatre. Crane opens by clarifying that he isn’t Sergio Blanco, but that for the evening he’ll be trying to be Sergio, a character version of Sergio. Sergio as a character. “Clear? Everyone good?” he asks, affirming that there is some work of suspending disbelief to do on our part. From the prologue, we swiftly descend into the story of Sergio, a lecturer of Philology out in Ljubljana, Slovenia to give a talk on “Narcissus and the Gaze… As in G-A-Z-E.” Not gays.
Having settled in his hotel room, Sergio decides to have a quick scroll of Grindr to find some company for the evening. He finds Igor, 300m away, who’s up for a hot and heavy night of drugs and sex. It’s only after a swift and satisfying hookup, and Igor is out of the door, that Sergio discovers a dark bloodstain on his carpet. The more he inspects it, the more stains that appear around his room. It soon becomes a fixation to find out where exactly these stains came from. Crashing from preparation for his impending lecture, going on his morning runs, and more hook-ups with Igor, the bloodstains gradually becomes an overwhelming fascination. What begins as intrigue soon becomes a free-fall into a bottomless pit of lust, desire and ego.
The overwhelming impression left by this piece is Sam Crane’s herculean feat of stamina, memory and commitment to the production. Not only is he on stage alone for an hour and a half, but there are very few moments of respite for him. He’s also not given the luxury of a character to hide behind, appearing plainly as himself, the actor, commanding his audience. Under Daniel Goldman’s direction, he manages to sustain interest and pace from the beginning, right on through to the canny turn tail Epilogue. Goldman’s admiration for Sergio Blanco’s The Rage of Narcissus is palpable in his skilful translation of the piece and delicately bringing it to life on stage.
The Rage of Narcissus is running at The Pleasance, North Road N7 9EF ’til 8th March. qxtickets.com
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