Gareth K Vile looks at Flatrate's latest play, The Belief Project.
Throughout their existence, Flatrate have never been afraid to embrace difficult subjects: having done sexual dissipation and pornography, they turn to baby killing, domestic abuse and recovery from drug addiction. Their last show at the Tron, The Zeroes Keep Coming, had a loose, lurching structure, darting from climax to climax: The Belief Project is slower, more measured, yet serves up that characteristic darkness.
At two hours, The Belief Project could be easily pruned: they tell the story from conception to cot smothering, manipulating a version of the montage, the father putting on ties, open letters, the mother reading from baby books, to suggest the passing of time. A former junky musician wanders in and out of their lives, the credit crunch punishes the father, sexual politics become sexual fascism and Paul Gadd turns in a monstrous performance, a leering, immature wife-beater, lacking any redeeming qualities. That the play’s moral centre is a junky defines the moral ambiguity and the despair at the heart of the script.
The structure is far more traditional than the previous show, and this softens Zeroes punch to a more rounded look at the degeneration of a relationship. And while baby killing has both shock value and a classical resonance, thanks to The Medea, it is difficult to feel any sympathy for the mother or father: he is a colossal cunt, and her willingness to start a family with him is incomprehensible. Gadd is powerful, capturing a vicious streak beneath the business suit, but overpowers the understated performances around him: although confident in their own right, they lack the iconic intensity of Gadd’s father, allowing his story to dominate. This reflects the thrust of the tragedy, the father destroying everyone around him, although it undermines the slow unfolding of the final tragedy. Equally, allowing the father to overshadow his wife and lodger makes Belief his story. Despite Gadd’s charisma, the story of a vicious thug who merely degenerates lacks dramatic impact.
The Belief Project represents a stage of Flatrate’s development: after the punk energy of Zeroes, which is still evident in their brave DIY aesthetic and desire to uncover the seamy underbelly of the happy bourgeois couple, Belief is an experiment in traditional form. Embracing a more recognisable format lessens the immediate impact, giving more space to reflection by the audience. If not entirely successful, it shares Zeroes’ ability to challenge, without offering solutions.
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