Review: THE HAUNTING OF SUSAN A, King's Head Theatre

It's been a while since Mark Ravenhill's opened a play in London. After The Cane premiered to stellar reviews at the Royal Court in 2018 and the musical adaptation of The Boy in the Dress (for which Ravenhill wrote the book) debuted in Stratford-upon-Avon the year after, The Haunting of Susan A is somewhat of a comeback for the playwright.

Written for and set in the King's Head, the show sees the theatre's own artistic director jumping in the shoes of performer while penning and presumably (there's no director listed) directing it. Dubbed a "site responsive" piece, the project is an atmospheric experience on paper. Wouldn't it be exciting to sit in the same room where the events presented on stage allegedly unfolded?

But it doesn't work in the slightest. From performance to writing, the production is dramatically uninteresting. Once Ravenhill goes down memory lane giving his spiel about the history of the King's Head and we move into storytelling territory, there's not enough reasons for the audience to stick around.

Suzanne Ahmet plays a broken, retired actress who desperately wants to share her horrid ordeal. It obviously involves a ghost, death, and a substantial amount of show-business self-absorption. While Ravenhill stars as himself, he is only relatively comfortable when acting isn't required and he doesn't have to interact with Ahmet. On the other hand, Ahmet is only ever at ease when she's overplaying the characters in her own narrative.

Her overdone emphasis and drama school-y gesticulations betray the severe deficiencies of the direction and a less-than-engaging script. We simply do not care about her storyline enough to want her interrupting Ravenhill's accounts of illegal boxing matches and general pub debauchery.

Without much else to latch onto, the rocky performances and lack of naturalness slip to the front and not even all the jabs at balding, middle-aged white critics who "sat through worse" could rescue the piece. The crowd is involved in an attempt at realism, but it reinforces the scriptedness of a wannabe true-to-life play.

Backhanded feminism and half-hearted sex-positive politics can't save it either. It's a vain, empty ghost story, haunted by a few predictable jump-scares and lacking all the thrill of the genre. What a shame.

The Haunting of Susan A runs at the King'd Head Theatre until 26 June.

Photo credit: Rah Petherbridge

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