Review: REYKJAVIK, Hampstead Theatre

There’s a whiff of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem about Richard Bean’s Reykjavík. Come and raise a melancholic glass to the old world of superstition, mythic tales of magic and monsters, fated to be swallowed by the bloodless age of bureaucracy. It’s like spending an evening with that old man in the pub the light in whose eyes fades as he recounts tales of yonder realising that things ain’t what they used to be.

A fishing trawler has capsized off the Icelandic coast. Donald Claxton is in crisis mode, he is the owner of the fleet hunkered down in his Hull office, shielded by his desk, a three-piece suit his chainmail armour. Is he responsible for the deaths of his crew? His heavy eyes anchored with anxious exhaustion suggest yes. His gaze is magnetised to the window, a quick glance at the incoming ships at the dock beyond the glass in the hope that his might return.

Meanwhile the five stranded survivors mull away their existential angst in a Reykjavík guest house trading ghost stories and folk tales. That is until Caxton flies out to join them. The once sacrosanct boundary between manager and subordinate shatters. Managerial master and seafaring slave sit shoulder to shoulder for the first time united by tragedy.

You can imagine how a lesser playwright would let it unravel into a finger wag about capitalist exploitation. They are all victims of the vicious machinery of commerce. Caxton is fated to “walk” a ritual pilgrimage to the slum houses of the bereaved, clambering down from his ivory tower to look the wives and mothers of labourers in their eyes and offer his condolences. Yet he, as one of the sailors puts it to him in a fiery exchange, never has to risk his life. He’s not one of the lads. But his tender humanity bleeds through his stoic demeanour demanding recognition.

Just as you think the dramatic heft will overpower it, Bean’s agile eye for humour offsets the weight. Staccato rhythms evoke the icy comedy of menace from early Pinter only for Bean to diffuse the tension with a sly gag. “Whatever you do”, advises Claxton’s glaring scowl of a father, “don’t piss in the house of a woman you have widowed.”

The slapstick hijinks of Bean’s hit One Man, Two Guvnors feel a world away, but just the right amount of light seeps through the cracks, a panacea to the surrounding darkness. Or maybe the evocation of Pinter is just the decor - sepia-toned walls, kissed in cigarette smoke. You can taste the claustrophobic mustiness with your eyes.

Ensemble performances fine tune the comedy to perfection across the board. Director Emily Burns is a master of navigating power hierarchies, gorgeously winding up the suspense, teasing us with the promise of outright detonation and always faithful to Bean’s writing. Hampstead Theatre has had a rocky trajectory since Covid. Biding its time to produce a stone-cold hit, this might be it. 

Reykjavík plays at Hampstead Theatre until 23 November

Photo Credits: Mark Douet

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