Anna Burnside reviews ‘a nerve-jangling production.’
It’s been a while since there has been a dramatic mass shooting, although Wikipedia lists 479 in the US this year to date, leaving 570 dead.
David Greig wrote The Events in the wake of Anders Breivik’s massacre of eight people in a van in Oslo, then 69 more at a youth camp on Utoya island, in 2011. It’s not about Breivik but he lurks in the background of the seaside village where Claire, the vicar, lives through an attack on her community choir.
This nerve-jangling production, directed by Jack Nurse, welcomes the audience into what feels like a rehearsal. Members of an actual community choir bring us tea and coffee as they work through their warm-up songs. Claire, played by Claire Lamont, bounds around the stage, radiating warmth, conducting with her whole body.
Then the boy arrives in the room. This is a safe space, everyone is welcome - even, it turns out, a killer.
Sam Stopford plays the shooter, and every other part, as Claire turns the horrors of the slaughter inside out and upside down. She talks to an MP, a psychiatrist, her partner and, eventually, the boy himself, desperately trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
The FAQ sequence, where he does press ups and talks about relaxing from the efforts of waging tribal war by playing Call of Duty and listening to Dizzee Rascal is masterful.
The Events was written before Andrew Tate and it’s possible to see glimpses of the horrors to come in Greig’s prescient writing. This is not a fun night out but it’s an important one.
The Events performs at Cumbernauld Theatre at Lanternhouse until October 5, 2024.
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