Theatre review: Otherland

Chris Bush's Otherland opens with an otherwise happy couple divorcing over one insurmountable issue; the rest of the two and a half hours follows each of them through the huge physical and emotional changes that come next. Jo (Jade Anouka) has always known her husband identified as a woman but had no intention of transitioning, and it never caused any problems. But after ten years together Harry (Fizz Sinclair) has decided it's time to be her real self, and while bisexual Jo is primarily attracted to women, it turns out the woman Harry has become isn't one of them. They separate and largely lose contact, and while Jo meets a new partner in Gabby (Amanda Wilkin,) Harry has to navigate both the legal obstacles to having her gender recognised, and the personal milestones with her family: Her initially supportive-seeming mother Elaine (Retired Lesbian Jackie Clune) is actually constantly deadnaming her and dismissing her transition.

Bush opts for a storytelling theatre approach, with a multi-roling chorus of Danielle Fiamanya, Laura Hanna, Beth Hinton-Lever and Serena Manteghi talking us through the next couple of years for the two women, as well as their internal thoughts and struggles.

Mostly interesting with a few lulls, the word that came to mind for the first act was "nice" - with all the backhanded nature implied in the compliment. It is a hugely sympathetic look at both leads, and though dealing with the darkest elements of what they both face it does so with a largely positive, optimistic view of their ability to get through them. The essential theme for both is them connecting with what being a woman means in a physical and societal way: Harry's female friends are very accepting of her but she feels unable to quite count herself among their ranks until she's experienced the specific challenges and discrimination that come from walking down the street and being perceived as a woman.

For Jo it's a very unexpected physical change as, after never wanting children, she ends up married to Gabby who desperately wants them but can't have them. By the interval we have mixed feelings of happiness for her - she's found someone she loves so much she's willing to carry her child, but the pregnancy itself still feels alien to her. So far it's a warm, witty and welcoming show with a surprisingly high hit rate of laugh-out-loud moments for a story with so many potential dark areas, but it does feel like it lacks bite.

I'm not sure that's quite what we get after the interval but we definitely get something: With Harry now on hormones and Jo pregnant, the parallel stories go full on into metaphor of bodily transformation. Fly Davis' set opens up to reveal a shallow pool, and Harry's story is told through an 18th century fantasy of a mermaid discovered on the beach, brought to land and gradually transformed into a human - but never quite accepted. Jo meanwhile imagines herself in a sci-fi as a cyborg surrogate, reduced to a carrier body that's not allowed to emotionally connect with the family she's helping build. With the mermaid storyline supposedly spanning centuries, I thought we might have the two fantasy versions eventually meet up, and was getting Mr Burns flashbacks.

The surprise here is that these dreamlike sequences are allowed to run for almost the whole rest of the play, and while Ann Yee's production valiantly manages the tonal shift it does struggle to sustain it for such a long period, especially as the metaphor gets laboured: The mermaid story in particular has brief flashes of Legz Akimbo Theatre Company, and as I've said before, once you see Legz Akimbo in a show even for a moment it's impossible to shake. (Clune's especially viciously judgmental character in this section is called Hera, which again feels a bit of a heavy-handed reference to the goddess who invariably punished other women for men's crimes.)

So if Otherland feels good but slightly lacking in the first act, I'm not sure the tonal whiplash of the second is quite the missing element we needed. Still, there's a lot to enjoy here in an inclusive, embracing piece that makes its serious points seriously without losing the elements of joy. Particularly in the use of music - perhaps emboldened by her most recent success being a musical, Bush has liberally used song (composed by Jennifer Whyte and predominantly sung by the chorus, but the whole cast get their moments) to heighten the action and emotions, and these brief but highly evocative bursts into song are a definite highlight.

Otherland by Chris Bush is booking until the 15th of March at the Almeida Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.