Theatre review: The Woods

A fairly common thing on film, the ability to create the feel of a dream - or particularly a nightmare - on stage is rarer, and something I always find impressive and quite transfixing when someone gets it right; so Lucy Morrison's production of The Woods kept my attention even as it became apparent that Robert Alan Evans' play itself was going to be a frustrating affair. Shuffling around in a dirty summer dress, Future Dame Lesley Sharp's nameless Woman is simultaneously a young mother and an ancient crone of the wilderness, who comes across a Boy (Finn Bennett) unconscious in the woods and drags him to safety in a shack that she gradually has to pull apart to feed a fire to keep him warm. Nursing him back to health and feeding him, she's desperate to keep the boy safe while also resenting him; and somewhere in the trees lurks a charismatic Wolf (Tom Mothersdale,) who tries to tempt her away in various guises (including that of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, for some reason.) Possible spoilers after the text break, although personally I felt a lot of what I discuss was laid out too early in the play to really be considered much of a twist.

Naomi Dawson's set brings this eerie Little Red Riding Hood setting right into the Royal Court's attic space, but somewhere above the ominous shadows there occasionally flashes up a much more brightly lit setting of a suburban kitchen, loud cries coming out of a baby monitor.

So the woods are a metaphor for post-natal depression, the Woman struggling with her conflicting emotions towards her baby. In the woods she and the Wolf have heavy Deep South accents, but whenever reality creeps in she and the Boy are Estuary English. The two accents, and the two worlds, start to mingle and collide as the Boy appears to die, and the Woman goes on a journey dragging his lifeless body behind her; sometimes she's clearly in some other dream landscape, other moments seem to be a confused woman navigating the real world. It's not initially clear if the Boy is a version of a child in front of her now, or a memory of one she killed in the past - but it's Upstairs at the Royal Court so there's definitely a dead baby in the story somewhere.

It's Tom Mothersdale in a tree, but he's wearing clothes so it's confusing

The weirdly frustrating thing about The Woods is that, constructed as it is like a puzzle, it somehow manages to give away too much and not enough at the same time. Or at least it gives away too much too early: It's clear within minutes that the play deals with post-natal depression and the Woman's either killed a child in the past, or is thinking of killing this one. But with the general theme laid out early, Evans then proceeds to dance around the specifics of what's going on, and who everyone is (I initially thought the Wolf was a past child the Woman had killed and the Boy a new one she was trying to protect from herself, but later leaned towards the Boy being the dead child and the Wolf a personification of the depression itself; although if he is it's a muddled one.)

Also oddly out of place is a scene where the Woman falls asleep in a playground and is bullied by a teenager (Charles Furness) and his gang; I took it to be something that happened to her as she wandered around in a fugue state after killing the child, but bringing in a fourth character for just one scene is a weird break from the claustrophobic style of the rest of the play. Not that any of these issues is apparent in Sharp's focused and intense performance; in fact all the cast and creatives come together to create something truly atmospheric - and one fiery special effect from Dawson's set is a bona fide coup de théâtre. But the play itself feels like a mystery that gives away all the answers it's willing to in the opening scene, and then gets round to asking the questions.

The Woods by Robert Alan Evans is booking until the 20th of October at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.