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.
