Animal

Animal
Soho Theatre, London

Group: Red Room

Tom Ogg

Pongo is an old man prone to wild furies. Brutally and seemingly irrevocably corrupted by his past of which he has no memory, he finds himself in a drug trial funded by a large drugs company. The 'study' aims to find a drug to pacify humanity, to prevent civil unrest and even war.

The promotional literature asks rather irritatingly 'but isn't anger vital to our humanity?' But the play is not really about any right to be 'angry', it's about freedom- freedom from control by others, freedom to protest. It's our ability to choose to be angry, humane or whatever, that they're shouting about in this play.

Pongo is rehabilitated, treated for psychosis and given the TLC he needs. He shows himself to be an intelligent and creative man, if a little eccentric. Dr Lee and Elmo (his nurse) become very fond of Pongo, more so than any of the other patient on the study. Once he is rehabilitated they face the moral dilemma of whether to continue testing these drugs on him, and whether to release him allow him to make a life of his own, albeir under supervision. Some of the situations that arise are challenging, and the increasingly tense interaction between characters is pulled off quite outstandingly.

Elmo is an utterly hilarious character; without him I think this production would fall flat. He is a comedian by night, which gives the opportunity for a whole host of entertaining situations. However, far too many new problems are brought to the surface through vehicles such as Elmo's life as a comedian, without having any ovbious bearing on the play as a whole. Sexism and the vulgar objectification of women are explored with Elmo (it's quite funny really), but there is no overlap, no interesting connection or real link.

The writer's (Kay Adshead) key strength is characterisation and human interaction. While the political and thematic side of things is good, it is not quite good enough. I don't think the author could resist an slight Iraq-isation of the text halfway though the writing process (the play was written as that saga unfolded). The antiwar overtones are subtle, but still fail to gel with the theme suggested in the PR material, where we are grandly asked if 'In this Millennium, will we choose to be Animals or Angels?'

Nonetheless, there is undoubtedly enough here to make it not only interesting, but funny, shocking and even compelling. Indeed, if it were not for the promotional literature messing up my thinking about this play, I think would have enjoyed it a lot more. So the message is, go and see it, but don't read anything about it.

Till 27 September