"Angel". Pilch. Review by Anuj Mishra

There is something dystopian about the racket of a tube’s approach. The gust of stale air which presages the beastly roar of its arrival, and then the descending scale of its slowing to a stop. Angel, a piece of new writing by Susie Weidmann and Jacob Potter, takes the Underground as the setting for its own modern dystopia. A thirty-odd woman, Sara, takes a seat on the tube to make a ten minute journey down the Northern line to Angel, where she has a doctor’s appointment to attend. Sara (Susie Weidmann) tells us that she’s going to find out whether the lump in her breast is cancer or not, before directing the stranger sitting next to her to feel it for himself.

Angel plays out as a concatenation of laughably awkward moments like this one. Weidmann’s Sara monologues at the audience in real-time, like a subterranean Fleabag, while her journey is interspersed with flashbacks from key moments in her life, all of which also took place on trains. In each of these flashbacks, Sara is played by a different actor in quite a different way. The clarifying effect that flashback usually has is completely upended, and the character becomes a kaleidoscope of conflicting personas with only her dry humour and stalwart husband, Angel (Purav Menon) remaining consistent. By effect, Angel offers a window into several journeys, none of which reach any sort of destination. It’s only the prospect of death which offers any semblance of finality.

These obfuscated symbolic overtones formed the backdrop to a production which possessed all the hallmarks we have come to expect from Matchbox Productions – creative direction, excellent performers, and clever set-design. The Pilch’s usual thrust stage was reconfigured to recreate a train carriage, with the blocks of audience seating separated by a central aisle and moquette train seats for the players, creating a T-shaped performance space. The effect was slightly voyeuristic, recreating that wonderful experience of eavesdropping on a particularly exciting conversation on public transport.

Each Sara – Catty Claire, Rose Hemon, Izzy Lever – lent a new dimension to the character, while the sporadic reappearances of Nate Wintraub – as a priest, a stoner, and potential shag, among others – brought a humour to this would-be tragedy. The efforts of Orli Wilkins and Ice Dob perfectly recreated the distinctive sights and sounds of the underground.

At just an hour, Angel is short, but stops short of intensity. Instead, the play reveals the mundane, being-towards-nothingness that tinges the everyday.

Angel concludes its sell-out run at the Michael Pilch Studio tonight, 22nd February. Runtime, 1 hour.

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