Review: WINNER'S CURSE, Park Theatre

"To negotiate" means to have formal discussions with someone in order to reach an agreement and the "winner's curse" is the tendency to attribute more value to the item won if there was some degree of fight involved in winning it. If you didn't know that, Daniel Taub's play Winner's Curse explains it repeatedly over the course of two hours. It's astonishing how many times a concept can be echoed in all its variations in one single evening.

Nobel Prize winner Hugo Leitski is giving a lecture about his time negotiating for the fictional nation of Karvistan. The country used to be in a military deadlock with Moldonia over a strip of land that would benefit both. The two delegations meet in a shabby lodge to try to solve the stalemate during a temporary ceasefire. The production makes a farce of geopolitical tensions and falls short in satire, over-delivering its cheap gags and over-engaging in silly audience interaction.

It attempts to explain mediation and negotiation with irrelevant exercises, infantilising the public and overcooking the ultimate message in an infuriating oversimplification of the mechanics of diplomacy. While the older version of Hugo (Whose Line Is It Anyway?'s Clive Anderson) is addressing the crowd, his younger self (Arthur Conti) grapples with the morality of the job. The enthusiasm of youth clashes with the disillusionment of maturity.

Michael Maloney's coarsely astute Anton Korsakov bestows lesson after lesson upon his young partner, the President's nephew, sent there on glorified work experience after his studies. The other faction is formed by the sombre Rozhina Flintok (Winnie Arhin) and the boisterous General Volisch Gromski (Barrie Rutter). Nichola McAuliffe is Vaslika Krenskaya, the eccentric housekeeper and heart of the story with dry-as-tundra quips. The pronunciation vass-licker is apparently very funny to the writers because it becomes an overplayed running joke.

Directed by Jez Bond, the production might be philosophically fascinating but gets lost in the tired, outdated humour and lack of grip. Taub's expertise on the matter (he's a lawyer and diplomat with first-hand experience) shows in the dynamics between the characters, but opting to shape the piece into a comedy with the aid of playwright Dan Patterson is as haphazard and as sloppy as press night was. Missed cues and forgotten lines due to Anderson's nerves are the final blow.

Prince Harry's frost-bitten manhood gets a mention, as well as frantic attempts at politically relevant comic observations that don't serve the narrative. It's interesting how one can be culturally insensitive towards a country that doesn't exist. The Soviet implications in the names are tone deaf in the current political climate, and Isobel Nicolson's choice of costumes - recalling of Putin's suit clashing with Zelenskyy's military attire - while perhaps accidental, is a grim, tasteless callback to the tragedy still happening in Ukraine.

The occasional nonsensical edge suddenly turns into bona fide melodrama at the very end after the intervention of the American mediator (Greg Lockett) and a bonkers revelation from Mrs Vaslika. The whole thing is excruciating. From seeing Anderson trying to believe in what he's saying while navigating Nicolson's revolving stage to the stale shticks and lack of tact.

The acting and directing, however, have spots of brilliance. Conti is a star in the making as he leans into the slapstick motif of the play with precise comedic timing, while McAuliffe is generous in her performance, actively taking Taub's ruses and developing them in lasting, genuine laughter. It's a pity they are drops in a subpar ocean. Bond himself displays an aptitude to direct his performers towards physical comedy, but something stops him.

The subject has all the potential to be a black satire, but it's too restrained and, frankly, disappointing to work. What a shame.

Winner's Curse runs at the Park Theatre until 11 March.

Photo Credit: Alex Brenner

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