Review Roundup: THE OTHER PLACE at The National Theatre

The National Theatre is presenting the world premiere of The Other Place, a new play directed and written by Alexander Zeldin with music by Yannis Philippakis, inspired by Sophocles' classic story Antigone.

Casting for The Other Place includes Lee Braithwaite as Leni, Emma D’Arcy as Annie, Emma Ernest as understudy Annie/Issy, Tylan Grant as understudy Leni, Jerry Killick as Terry, Lorna Lowe as understudy Erica, Tobias Menzies as Chris, Alison Oliver as Issy, Nina Sosanya as Erica and Simon Willmont as understudy Chris/Terry. 

In the play, two sisters reunite on the anniversary of the death of their father. Their uncle has remodelled their family home, in an attempt at a fresh start. But one sister’s sudden reappearance threatens to shatter this fragile idyll as she demands justice for the pain she carries. Amid the debris and the new extension, guilt, grief and greed battle it out in the family’s competing dreams of their future. When we are faced with the suffering of others, even those closest to us, can we look away?

Directed by Alexander Zeldin with set and Costume Designer Rosanna Vize, lighting designer James Farncombe, composer Yannis Philippakis, sound designer Josh Anio Grigg, movement director Marcin Rudy, casting director Alastair Coomer CDG, intimacy coordinator Ellie McAlpine for EK Intimacy, voice coaching by Cathleen McCarron, Dramaturg (NT) Sasha Milavic Davies, Dramaturg (AZC) Faye Merralls, associate director Sammy Glover and associate lighting designer Bethany Gupwell.

The Other Place is playing in the Lyttelton theatre until 9 November. See what the critics are saying...

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Gary Naylor, BroadwayWorld: The Other Place is a ferocious whirlpool of a play that sucks you further and further down into a vortex that drowns you in man’s venality. That all this was known to Sophocles some 2500 years or so ago and that it’s all so plausible in (say) a Richmond townhouse today, is both eye-poppingly revelatory, but also bracing in its exposure of what lies behind the mundanities of everyday life.  Go see it, but take a walk along the Thames after you file out, as ashen-faced as your fellow audience members, decompression not just recommended, but essential.

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian: It is an accomplishment that this drama generates gasping shocks with such an ancient story. Chris’s wife, Erica (Nina Sosanya), speaks about all that is forgiven in families, and you get the sense that these bereft characters will forge on in denial or forced forgetfulness. Zeldin’s previous play, The Confessions, was quietly dazzling and this one comes with the same meticulous underpinning of ideas. Although lean at 80 minutes, its drama is huge.

Holly O'Mahony, London Theatre: There’s also not a clear point to this story, except, perhaps, to remind us that difficult people are often the product of difficult pasts. But it’s a play that develops slowly then drops a bombshell; a night at the theatre you won’t forget.

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times: Performances across the board are tremendous, reminding us that nearly every character carries their own grief. Oliver’s anxious Issy struggles to be heard; Jerry Killick, as the creepy project manager, bolts whenever the going gets tough. Most notable of all is Lee Braithwaite as Erica’s teenage son, a lad suddenly caught up in a nightmare. As he slumps in the dead man’s chair at the end you wonder what the legacy of all this will be for him.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: Though a gloomy fate seems inevitable, and the show is just 80 minutes long, most of the characters are beautifully realised. Menzies gives us a finely detailed picture of a man who wants to be the ‘fun uncle’ and the matey stepdad but is implacable when his authority is challenged. He finds humanity in a horrible, compromised man. Oliver, Braithwaite and Sosanya sketch in entire emotional backstories with a few deft touches such Issy’s nervously jiggling knee.

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out: It’s a muddled showing from Zeldin the writer. But the elegant, ominous production from Zeldin the director ultimately salvages things, as do extremely committed performances from  D’Arcy and Menzies. Their belief in this play very nearly carried me.

Claire Allfree, The Telegraph: But on its own terms, this is sucker-punch theatre, beautifully detailed and at times excruciatingly funny. Jerry Killick adds to the discomfort as Terry, an ageing raver in flip flops who is both truth-teller and dirty predatory sexual menace. And as Erica, Nina Soysanya gives elegant tremulous voice to a tragedy that threatens to keep on reverberating through her family. “People always say there are some things you can’t forgive but...we forgive all sorts of things we shouldn’t. I wonder what that does to us.” 

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