What a gorgeous, absorbing, overambitious mess of ideas about contemporary alienation is this new play by Simon Stephens. Stephens reached the big league by adapting The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time for the stage, having made his name with gritty yet lyrical plays such as Port, Harper Regan and Punk Rock.
This is very much one from his more recent experimental phase. Stephens reimagines characters from Bizet’s opera as avatars of current concerns about the saminess of the world cities in which we walk around wedded to our iPhones, together but alone.
Michael Longhurst’s anguished, atmospheric, physically expressive production walks a fine line between the poetic and the portentous. Lizzie Clachan’s design places the five characters, who tell us their