Rating: ****
The dark and grotty arches of The Southwark Playhouse’s Vaults provide the perfect claustrophobic setting for John Patrick Shanley’s intense two-hander, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.
Danny (Jonathan Chambers) is a trucker with serious anger management issues. In the loneliest bar in the Bronx he meets Roberta (Clare Latham), a troubled young mother with a dark secret, and the two form an instant connection.
Shanley is an Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, and it’s not hard to understand why. This sharply written play skilfully draws the audience in; swift gear changes mean laughter rapidly becomes shock as the protagonists reveal their inner-most demons. Both have come to the bar to avoid other people, but through sparring and jousting and pushing each other’s buttons they soon realise that what they really need is each other.
Director Che Walker’s decision to stage this in the round is a bit of a mixed blessing. While the boxing ring arena it creates for the opening scene has its merits, the cast feel a little awkward on the bar stools, unsure of where to sit or where to look. But it really comes to life as we move to the bedroom – the complete minimalism lets the actors focus on the action as they live out the romantic dream that they think they don’t deserve.
This is a play that explores loneliness and ostracism, we see the layers peeled off both metaphorically and literally as they open themselves to each other. It’s utterly captivating; Bronx accents are always going to be hard work for an English cast, but this is more than made up for in the fantastic chemistry between Latham and Chambers. This is all the more remarkable as we are presented with a pair of thoroughly unlikeable characters who we find ourselves rooting for – and all this in just 75 minutes.
Danny and The Deep Blue Sea runs in the Southwark Playhouse Vaults until 19 November 2011. Full details and tickets are available from the theatre box-office.
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