Lorna Irvine finds much to be impressed with in this updated version of a classic.
Everything in Visiting Company's production is contaminated- from societal norms to the new cotton shirt the narrator wears for the first time. Peppered with modern references, from Vladimir Putin to iPads, it is a distinctly updated, urgent reading of Dostoyevsky's cynical, lyrically dark novella with a multimedia flavour: a TV screen buzzes and stutters away in the corner, displaying a video diary style confession of the older man (Andy Paterson) looking back at his younger self (Samuel Keefe)—the past and present colliding uneasily, and in reverse.
The stage set may suggest the kind of order akin to a Martin Creed exhibition, with all props, whether bottles or clothes, laid out in groups with almost OCD precision, but this tale is all about misanthropic chaos. Andrew McGregor's sounds and music and the overlapping voiceovers are incredibly jarring and atmospheric.
Millie Turner playing the young prostitute Liza has an entrance which is impressively directed by Debbie Hannan, and she plays the brittle taciturn enigma well initially, but is less assured when asked to do more than sing Chelsea Hotel and look sultry. Her character's emotional slow-burn feels a little tepid.
Yet, her clumsy choreography with Keefe, which forces them both into each other's space, is hugely effective, giving way to a horrible emotional and physical cruelty.
Samuel Keefe however, as the unnamed Underground Man is mesmerising- Keefe is emerging as one of Scotland's most compelling young actors in theatre today; he deftly handles the many contradictions of Underground Man's nature: his restless, darting eyed physicality pushed to the fore, as he sneers over everyday bugbears (banal chit-chat, celebrities, overuse of the word 'like') and the braying affectations of his old schoolfriends; yet he is pitiful too, lonely, desperate to fit in with them all. His consciousness gnaws away like a cancer- the very epitome of paranoia in a shifting, accelerated culture.
This code of dishonour has a nicely staged tension, which at just one hour feels much shorter, never outstaying its welcome in spite of its grubby brutality.
Run at Citizens has ended
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