Theatre review: Juniper Blood

Mike Bartlett's latest play sees him return to a Chekhovian setting and theme of a rural location consumed by possible ecological disaster, although without quite the formal use of Chekhov's structure of Albion: Juniper Blood features a much smaller cast and three acts rather than four, but it does still feel in many ways a successor to his earlier work. It starts almost as a comedy of disparate groups of farmers and urbanites forming an awkward blended family: Lip (Sam Troughton) is the monosyllabic heir to a farm that's been in his family for generations; quite how he ended up in a relationship with the well-off, earnest Ruth (Hattie Morahan) isn't entirely clear, but shortly before his father's death he agreed to take over the business, with his partner buying into it and investing in repairs and changes to turn it into a more sustainable, organic concern.

She has some idea of supplementing the farm's income by hiring out fields for glamping, and is trying it out by inviting her ex-stepdaughter Milly (Nadia Parkes) to visit. But it's Milly's friend Femi (Terique Jarrett) who will have a lasting impact.

Femi's theories on how the land can be stripped back to more traditional farming techniques to try and reverse the damage done to the land by overuse, artificial fertilisers and pesticides start Lip on a thought process that leads to him trying to entirely return the land to nature, reforesting the area as the only way he can square his life with his ideals of causing no further damage to the environment.

Jumping ahead a couple of years with every act, the play deals with big issues of whether wider ideals of believing there should be fewer humans using all the resources, can compete with the instinct of wanting one's own family to be the ones that survive and thrive. Lip's dedication to the future of the planet looks like monomania, but is anything less than that hypocrisy? James Macdonald's production has a starkness to it - Jo Joelson's lighting rarely turns the Donald and Margot Warehouse's house lights off, both making us part of ULTZ' whitewashed set and giving a slightly eerie quality to proceedings.

But it's also a witty and consistently entertaining script beginning with the shallow and scathing Milly, an unlikeable but funny character who goes through some major development and growth over the years. In fact multiple characters seem to become more likeable as Lip's plans for the farm take shape: Neighbouring farmer Tony (Jonathan Slinger) starts as a bit of a fat gammon archetype; whether his later physical transformation and accompanying softening of personality are genuine or an attempt to seduce Ruth remains unanswered to the end though.

It's not Bartlett's slickest or most accomplished work - characters resort a bit too often to lecturing each other on their side of the argument. But for a play that deals with a pretty bleak subject - the seeming impossibility of reversing even a small amount of environmental damage in the face of capitalism - it does so consistently entertainingly, throwing us into an extreme situating and making the monomaniac's point of view seem the only admirable one.

Juniper Blood by Mike Bartlett is booking until the 4th of October at the Donmar Warehouse.

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including two intervals.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.