"Dependants". Pilch

Oxford's love affair with Absurd Theatre had a nice Easter break, but, barely two weeks into the new term, it's back, refreshed, and it's absurder than ever.

Dependants is a new play by first-time playwright Milo Ghiandai. It's a deeply philosophical piece of work, reaching through the superficial crust of absurdist tropes, and considering dark and disturbing questions that lie beneath, in a surreal, hypnotic cycle of repetition.

Three characters, Finn, Mike and Jo, are trapped in a locked room. Every morning Finn is awoken by a sonorous knocking at the door. But the door won't open. And so, in an effort to make sense of their predicament, the three friends argue, debate, get drunk, turn cartwheels, write poetry, and share their obsessions.

What emerges, gradually, like a Polaroid materialising from a muddy base of incoherent colour, is a pattern of dependance (yes, the clue is indeed in the title). Finn, the wannabe author, needs Mike's chilly appraisals. Mike, who likes arranging fruit in a bowl with all the apples on one side and all the oranges on the other, needs Finn's breezy wildness. They both need Jo's maternal scolding. And all three of them really, really need that door to stay locked, no matter how much they claim otherwise. This is a cycle of addiction, and the Stockholm Syndrome that keeps them locked up is both their curse and their blessing.

But that door is also a portal between stage and audience. It's a physical symbol of the dividing line separating fiction from reality. As false creations, the three friends are trapped forever on the stage, even if they don't realise it themselves. As long as they stay cooped up in that room, they can fool themselves that they exist. So they don't just depend on each other; they depend on us to keep them there. What happens when they leave is anyone's guess, but that's a story that only begins as this one ends.

Ghiandai has filled his play with thought-provoking ideas, like a suitcase packed carefully to the brim with folded clothes: there's just so much in there. And the cast steer the absurd ship with unerring skill.

It won't be to everyone's taste. Absurd Theatre is divisive even at its best. And there are elements of Dependants that work less well than others. Finn and Mike both share a similar style of address, a slightly exaggerated mannerism which sits somewhere between deliberate artificiality and just speaking in a noticeably formal way. It's certainly intriguing, but it does flatten the distinctions between the characters.

And the two-act structure could be more rewarding if the second act were more clearly differentiated from the first. Don't worry, they aren't identical, but the points being made by the play are repeated, rather than advanced, leaving it with a sensation of treading water rather than swimming with the tide. 

Technically, there is a wonderfully nightmarish soundtrack of weird interference, deep thrumming and distant voices, as well as the doom-laden banging on the door, as pregnant with destiny as the opening knocks of Beethoven's Fifth.

Dependants is a play which seems to take place partly on the stage of the Pilch and partly inside the head of Milo Ghiandai. What it lacks in stagecraft, plot and conventional theatrical appeal, it makes up for in originality, self-confidence and serious thought. If you're ready for your next dose of absurdist alienation, just open the door.