Theatre review: Song From Far Away

The next transfer to Hampstead Theatre, this time to the main house, is Kirk Jameson's production of Song From Far Away from Manchester. This is one of those shows that took me a certain amount of effort to try and see without the context of having seen the original production. Not just because of the particularly memorable artistic choice that led it to inspire the Schlong From Far Away award in my yearly roundups, but also because Simon Stephens' mournful monologue was written specifically for its original director Ivo van Hove and star Eelco Smits. But this does mean there's a whole new dimension of seeing how the script bears up when taken away from the creatives Stephens envisioned it for, and seen with fresh eyes. So in Jameson's production, Ingrid Hu designs a large, luxurious, but still impersonal Amsterdam hotel room for Will Young's Willem to stay in when he returns from New York to the city of his birth.

The very fact that he's staying in a hotel is an early indicator of what kind of character Willem is: He's returned after twelve years away because his much younger brother Pauli has suddenly and inexplicably died of a heart attack in his mid-twenties.

He's back - almost grudgingly - for the funeral, and is staying in the hotel despite (or perhaps because of) the offer to stay with his family in his late brother's room. The monologue is structured as a series of letters Willem has written to Pauli, to deal with his grief and shock over the sudden loss. But we learn little about the dead man because it's unlikely Willem really knew him at all; he keeps trying to remember and sing a song (composed for the play by Mark Eitzel) that expresses his feelings better than he can.

Jameson's is quite a gentle, understated take on the story: Young doesn't immediately make Willem harsh, but he does have a signature, self-satisfied cattiness right from the start that signals an astonishingly self-involved way of looking at the world: Even his brother's funeral is treated as more or less an inconvenience. That coldness is something that goes right through him and has alienated his loved ones. Even by the end of his visit home, he's baffled by his sister's suggestion that their parents might have expected some form of emotional support from him.

Willem's a character who reveals a lot about himself - his alcoholism, the fact that he's still in love with the ex-boyfriend he dumped twelve years ago in search of something better that wasn't out there - without quite making the same connections himself. Young's version of the character doesn't feel as dangerously magnetic as Smits', but he does give the impression as the play comes to its end that he's slowly, devastatingly realising how damaged and lonely he is. A more gently unsettling take on the play confirms Stevens' uniquely abrasive protagonist can take on a variety of interpretations.

Song From Far Away by Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel is booking until the 22nd of July at Hampstead Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Mark Senior.