Theatre review: Archduke

I've had varied responses to American playwright Rajiv Joseph's work so far, a writer fond of surreal history plays focusing on people at the sidelines of great events. Though not quite as tight and memorable as Guards at the Taj, the latest of his plays to get a UK premiere (it does seem to take them a few years to make it over here) certainly didn't try my patience in the way Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo did. Archduke is named after the most famous person ever to hold that title, although Franz Ferdinand probably wouldn't have been pleased to find out why he got remembered for so long. The play doesn't, though, actually introduce us to the Archduke himself or stage his assassination, remembered as the inciting incident of the First World War. Instead the opening scene feels like Waiting for Godot but bearable, as two down-on-their-luck young men meet in an abandoned train tunnel and exchange gently confused conversation.

Gavrilo (Stanley Morgan) and Nedeljko (Chris Walley) are eventually joined by Trifco (Abraham Popoola,) a bit more well-informed on exactly what it is they're doing there, but ultimately as much of a pawn in a bigger scheme as the other two.

All three have been offered free medical treatment for their Period Drama Cough by a doctor who promptly diagnosed them with TB and gave them weeks to live. They can't be saved but they can go out with a literal bang and become martyrs for Serbia: The Archduke and his wife will be visiting Sarajevo in a few days' time, and the trio need to assassinate them both to strike a blow for Serbian independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Lyndsey Turner's production is notable for Es Devlin's dramatic set, the murky underground tunnel that curves off into the distance to make the Royal Court's stage look much bigger than it is. Neil Austin's lighting not only fills it with ominous shadows but also facilitates the scene changes, including a final coup de théâtre as the location becomes literal and we join the assassins on an actual train carriage.

But the play itself still makes its mark - Morgan, Walley and Popoola are a volatile but likeable trio, not very bright but smart enough to understand how the world's inequalities have conspired to lead them to their current situation. It also leaves them vulnerable to indoctrination: For much of the time what most attracts them to commit a notorious act is the prospect of a comfortable overnight train ride with free sandwiches, but the tightly wound Gavrilo is ripe to become a true believer.

There's obvious modern-day parallels to be found in this radicalisation using platitudes of religion and misogyny (Janice Connolly's grandmotherly Sladjana is the only woman on stage, good to cook treats for the boys but easily dismissed as a witch when she tries to suggest a different way forward.) This does bracket it with many other recent works about toxic masculinity and the overall point is sometimes vague - one danger of a writer's work regularly taking a decade to cross the Atlantic is that other people might have already written sharper jabs at the subject since then.

It's pretty consistently funny though, and a final scene in which the men imagine what might happen to them when they reach Sarajevo - a catalogue of disaster and coincidence that's all based on what actually did happen - is a reminder that this comedy retelling isn't entirely fanciful, and huge world events can result from farcical circumstances.

Archduke by Rajiv Joseph is booking until the 25th of July at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.