Theatre review: This Much I Know

My theatrical 2024 kicks off in chaotic fashion, with me trying to find a last-minute replacement for my second show of the year after a friend had to drop out of the trip, and next week's shows looking unlikely for me to get to because of tube strikes. As for my first play of the year, I was doubting I'd actually get to see the whole thing after a technical issue at the interval made it unclear whether or not we'd actually get a second act - we did, with the show eventually running 20 minutes over the advertised 2 hours 20. On the other hand if this start is anything to go by quality-wise, I could end up having a much less disappointing time at Hampstead Theatre than I did in 2023. Jonathan Spector is the playwright behind the Old Vic's big, starry 2022 show Eureka Day, and while this three-hander in Hampstead's studio space is a more modest proposal in some ways, its storytelling is more ambitious and, to me, more consistently satisfying. Although it does also get laughs from projections of emojis.

This Much I Know opens low-key (so low-key the people behind me didn't seem to have realised it had started and continued chattering and digging around their bags,) with a man entering to remind us to turn our phones off, and then wonder who actually will, and why some believe it doesn't apply to them. In fact this isn't an announcement, but the framing device of a lecture at an American liberal arts University. Lukesh (Esh Alladi) is introducing his undergraduates to his psychology course, and its recurring theme of the ways subconscious parts of the brain affect the way the more conscious parts see and understand the world. The programme notes contain a pretty exhaustive - and exhausting - description of the multiple types of heuristics and bias that inform decision-making; fortunately Lukesh's lecture is more entertaining, even before we get to meet two people in his life who illustrate what he's saying.

The brain seeks to make narrative sense of events in our lives, and his wife Natalya (Natalie Klamar) reached a crisis point after her car hit and killed a cyclist, in an accident that was the cyclist's fault. Unable to cast herself as either innocent or guilty, Natalya disappears one day on an unplanned trip around Russia to find out more about her grandmother. Meanwhile despite being a psychology professor, Lukesh has agreed to supervise a literature thesis for Harold (Oscar Adams,) a student no one else is willing to work with since it came out he's the son of a notorious white supremacist (voiced by a pre-recorded Danny Webb,) whose own beliefs aren't initially as far from his father's as he would like you to think. Harold's attempt to redefine The Time Machine as a vindication of racial purity ends up making him confront his own unconscious bias.

Blythe Brett's design uses the rather awkward thrust configuration of this space that makes for a very wide and shallow stage, but Chelsea Walker's production manages to navigate it well enough that it's rarely an issue, and the actors coexist smoothly with the projections (by Duncan McLean) that add crucial elements in some of the storytelling. But despite a few bells and whistles, the production is essentially streamlined enough to really let us enjoy the cleverness of Spector's script. This includes subtler elements - the Damascene conversion of a man who believes in white American superiority isn't an oh-captain-my-captain response to his British Asian teacher: The twisted logic he's been indoctrinated into already accepts Lukesh because he has value to him; it's in actually being made to apply his belief system critically that it starts to fall apart. There's also more playful, metatheatrical narrative tricks: Lukesh's opening lecture creates an arbitrary connection between cowboys and Tater Tots; when it's referenced by an elderly Russian man later, it seems this connection is one that now exists throughout the play's universe.

Yet more layers as there are threads connecting the stories to real people: Part of Natalya's reason for going to Russia is her grandmother's childhood friendship with Stalin's daughter Svetlana. Klamar also plays Svetlana Stalina in scenes of press conferences after her defection, and both women experience their huge life decisions as something they only consciously decided to do after they'd already done them. Harold is based on former white supremacist Derek Black, while also weaving in elements of H.G. Wells' denouncement in later life of his earlier belief in Eugenics. In other words this is another of those plays whose numerous different themes and ideas make it very satisfying to watch and mull over, but very unsatisfying to try and tie up in a review. Just as Lukesh's lecture concludes that the way the brain works makes humans paradoxically both responsible and not responsible for their decisions, and even Harold's turn away from his family's beliefs comes with unexpected consequences, the play doesn't fit all of its puzzle pieces together neatly in the end. But then why would it, when the need for everything to make sense is just the brain trying to impose a narrative?

This Much I Know by Jonathan Spector is booking until the 3rd of February at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes (advertised as 2 hours 20 minutes without technical difficulties) including interval.

Photo credit: The Other Richard.