ajhlovestheatre

LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS

by Sam Steiner

directed by Josie Rourke

Harold Pinter Theatre, London – until 18 March 2023

https://www.haroldpintertheatre.co.uk/shows/lemons-lemons-lemons-lemons-lemons

When this revival of Sam Steiner’s much praised, internationally produced talk piece was first announced, eyebrows were raised at the astronomical ticket prices, especially given how short it is (originally advertised as seventy five minutes, although Josie Rourke’s glossy production is a bit longer than that) and that it only features two actors, even if, in this instance, they’re two of this country’s most bankable and appealing small screen stars. The charisma and star power of Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman aside, there’s not much else here that justifies selling a vital organ to get a good seat.

I didn’t see any of the earlier iterations of Lemons x5, but I suspect it probably works extremely well in a tiny studio space. Unfortunately, in the (comparatively) cavernous spaces of a traditional West End playhouse like the Pinter, it starts to look like pretty thin gruel dramatically speaking, and suffers badly in comparison to Nick Payne’s Constellations and Duncan MacMillan’s Lungs, the two plays it structurally bears most relation to. Neither is it as striking and exciting as Steiner’s own You Stupid Darkness!, a bleakly comic apocalyptic fantasia seen at Southwark just prior to the pandemic, and rather more worthy of revival.

Turner and Coleman play Oliver and Bernadette, a youngish couple -he’s a musician, she’s a lawyer- in an alternative universe where the British government has introduced a “hush law” whereby citizens are limited to using 140 words per day. It’s an interesting idea, up to a point, and the idea of the UK being run by draconian, uncaring elitists at least feels topical. Ideologically Oliver and Bernadette are not immediately on the same page -he’s violently opposed to the bill, she isn’t automatically- and the play examines the impact of that on their relationship, while also looking at the impact of language, and what happens when it is drastically controlled or even cancelled altogether.

The problem is though, that Steiner’s script, which jumps around chronologically to sometimes confusing effect, tends to provoke more questions than it answers. If words are so precious, why do the couple tend to waste so many of them when the pressure is on? We see them using morse code but why don’t they communicate in sign language? How are the powers-that-be monitoring how many words people are using in the privacy of their own homes? What happens to rule breakers? And was the last minute revelation of an infidelity supposed to be as eye-rollingly obvious as it comes across? These holes are probably less evident when the audience is right on top of the action, but unfortunately a larger space tends to make Lemons x5 feel more like a drama school exercise than a fully fledged play, despite stretches of pithy dialogue and situations that ring true.

Rourke’s production, performed on set designer Robert Jones’s black circular disc in front of a neon-edged cyclorama filled with all the detritus of modern domestic life, is punchy but irredeemably chilly in spite of the chemistry between the two stars. Turner has the better role and he invests Oliver with magnetism and real charm. The likeable Coleman is fine, but Bernadette just doesn’t feel that interesting, which I think is a fault of the writing rather than the actress.

It’s perfectly watchable – in fact Turner consistently ensures that it’s even more than that – and at this length, certainly doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. It just feels a bit, well, beige. The advertising tagline for this production is that it’s “a love story that leaves you speechless” and that’s possibly quite accurate: you may well be struck dumb by how little you get for your money.