The Great Lie of the Western World – Cathode Ray Tube

Overview

We all have that guy in our lives, you know the one — he's stayed more antiestablishment than you for that bit longer. He doesn't have a job that could also be called a career, he doesn't have many more possessions than would fit in a backpack, and when you just want to vent about the crazy demands your boss made this week, he insists on talking about Marx's alienation of labour. He's not self-aware, he's never ironic, and he's probably freeloading on your couch for too long. That guy. Wouldn't it surprise you if he were here with a purpose?

That's just the case in The Great Lie of the Western World, an original play by independent theatre makers Cathode Ray Tube (Thirty-Three). Emerson (Michael Booth) has blown into town to crash with old friend Simon (Alistair Powning), and his earnestness/beardiness/late-night drinking/midday sleeping is disturbing the peace in Simon's relationship with Fiona (Kate Skinner). But things weren't perfect between the couple to begin with, and Emerson may be the one to bring their secrets into the light, for better or worse.

The naturalism in the dialogue is remarkable, and the actors turn in performances to match. Once you get wrapped up in it, you get the feeling you could be a spirit haunting the inner-city terrace of any number of tenuously satisfied couples. The production has been developed with so much attention to the real that Fiona applies Band-Aids to her blisters and picks at her corns when she takes off her shoes. Yet for all its adamant ordinariness, the script, by Booth and Powning, contains well-measured tension, mystery, surprise and magic that make its two hours slip easily by.

It's not flashy, but it sure is good. Cathode Ray Tube have clear purpose and method to their work. They think of themselves as a band rather than a theatre company. They believe that "theatre is at its most powerful when every moment seems like an accident" (what Stanislavsky calls "the illusion of the first time"), and it certainly translates in The Great Lie of the Western World. It's funny, affecting and well worth spending a night in with.