Review: HIR, Bush Theatre

Upon being discharged from the Marine Corps, Isaac (Arthur Darvill) goes back home only to find an anarchically ruled household at hand of his mother (Ashley McGuire).

Fed up with domestic patriarchy, Paige seized the opportunity given by her abusive husband Arthur (Andy Williams) having a crippling stroke to turn the tables and start making the rules. She built an ally in her transitioning son Max (Griffyn Gilligan), who helps her to keep tight hold on the reins whilst instructing her on the new ways of the world of gender. Isaac is forced to come to terms with a reality he doesn't recognise as his own.

Written by Taylor Mac and directed by Nadia Fall, Hir mixes ingenious comedy with progressive ideas imbued with subversion in an intensely thought-provoking production. The traverse staging is inventive, with designer Ben Stones preferring a straightforward, hyper-detailed approach.

From the messy clothes that line its edges to the chaotic kitchen counter, Stones' contribution is striking, making us feel we're intruding on the story and sparking interest in the characters' lives from the start. Fall's direction is likewise effective, although some blocking is clearly chosen to satisfy both sides of the audiences.

Darvill's intensity and fervour is palpable from the moment he steps on stage, expressing his character's turmoil. His honest depiction is heart-wrenchingly real. He takes Mac's mischievous comedy and gives it a thoughtful side, aided by McGuire's bold and bubbly Paige. McGuire interesting presents resentment and hate hidden beneath a coating of support and apparent passion for everything LGBTQ+, creating a simultaneously lovely yet disconcertingly upsetting character.

Paige's interactions, especially with Gilligan's Max, come from earnest and unconditional love (and hate), and even though Isaac is initially stunned, Darvill's performance holds a little bit of both his stage parents in it: the uncanny ruthlessness of his father shows through in his cruel and sudden violence, while his mother's openness and acceptance is presented through his love for his brother.

Gilligan brings a distinctive and immediate realness and authenticity to Max, who uses ze/hir as gender-neutral pronouns. Hir youthful passion and desire to be like hir brother are touching and affecting, and are in direct opposition to the learnt behaviours that come from hir mother. It is disconcerting how the constant antagonising of hir father mirrors Paige's, but is also a memento of what Arthur was, exactly like Isaac's sometime attitude.

A father figure brought to his knees by a violent stroke, Williams' character is at the mercy of his wife and son, who don't show him any kindness and are of little help. Derided and vilified, Arthur exists between emasculation and mistreatment. Once the abuser and now the abused, he's dressed in a nightgown and with clown make-up. The actor is exceptionally expressive, given that Arthur can only communicate through whimpers or broken speech.

Mac's play explores how femininity and masculinity, abuse, social justice, and family relationships can all exist in the same toxic space as a rigid patriarchal and misogynistic order. Paige's prideful "end of male-egemony" is in fact a shift of wrongdoing, and Isaac's presence is maybe a too strong reminder of a past she wants so badly to extinguish.

Paige relishes in being a source of pain to the man who once was hers, but her resentment runs so deep that she inadvertently and probably subconsciously takes it out on Isaac as well. when she realises that the noise of the blender is a trigger for her eldest son's PTSD, she uses it for a laugh, not thinking about the outcome.

Gender and traditional masculinity have a large role in the play, with transexual Max n the middle of hormonal therapy. Ze might have all hir mother's support, but she is selfishly using hir for the ultimate purpose of hurting Arthur.

Hir is a masterful depiction of the irreparable dysfunctionality of a family whose members have each been broken by the others. There's certainly hope in progress, represented by the younger generation opening our eyes to new world, but sometimes the influence of our elders is inescapable.

Hir runs at Bush Theatre until 22 July

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

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