Last night I trekked over to Shepherd's Bush to see Annie Baker's play The Aliens with Ralph Little and Mackenzie Crook. The theatre space was tiny and an outstretched arm, even from the third row, would definitely have chafed a real life actor if one had so desired. This was theatre in the round and we entered seemingly by the back of a building, passing corrugated iron shutters, wheelie bins, gravel paths with the odd stray weed. The beginning of the play was as quiet and unspectacular as the end. Mackenzie Crook's character Jasper sloping idly onto the stage with what seemed like the mother of all hangovers. Then on ambles Ralph Little as KJ who immediately sings us one of many songs about maths and philosophy whilst concocting magic mushroom tea. After musings about wind farms, poetry and a glimpse at the underlying tortures of woman trouble in Jasper's life, Evan, a young cafe worker
played by Olly Alexander, fumbles onto the stage and into (or intertwined in) the the lives of these two unlikely allies.
The play presents us a small slice of the trio's lives and though there were points in the action where I expected sudden energetic bursts the narrative would then return to its naturally slow-paced musing. The performances were really strong and genuinely funny, the american accents faultless and the sweet-natured characters impossible not to fall for, but there was something about the play that seemed to lack. I couldn't quite put my finger on it and at first I thought it was bad pacing. However after reading other reviews I found a summary of my own feelings that I couldn't say better:
This is a surprisingly tricky play, which sometimes treads very near the edge of making a statement far larger than its characters are able to think of, but then steps back and contents itself with, well, being itself. Just like its characters. So while we sometimes expect an explosion of feeling, and have to endure an unnecessary interval, what we are left with is a gentle ache - and a sense of compassion for life’s losers, its incapables and its hurting souls.
Quote by Aleks Sierz
The Aliens is at the Bush Theatre till October 16th.
