In the Anarchy 1138-53, you raid the profane poets of the forest. A scoliolic man warns you of a snake in the grass. You’re stabbed on a toilet by the assassin beneath you. You climb up towers to gain vantage and expand your map. Somebody yells at you to “ULT ULT ULT ULT ULT.”
Where to begin with this show? It’s a rambling duologue, or a million soliloquies stitched together, a post-punk Beckettian squabble, an obsessive fandom-wiki walkthrough for a cult video game. Many surrealities occur: a gothic dance, a folksy punk sing-along. One of the two performers retches on stage, excuses himself, and returns with a glass of wine.
It’s set in its titular historical era, marked by civil war between England and Normandy. The war was fought over a succession dispute, leading to a breakdown of law and order, and precipitating widespread suffering for both peoples. The players, siblings Tobias and Kerith Manderson-Galvin, break character and expose the vulnerabilities and kinks in their performance in a way that leaves you unsure whether this is part of the performance, too. Marketed as “anti-theatrical”, the play is indeed hard to grasp. The bulk of the experience is being rapid-fire talked at, in a way that shifts fluidly between comedy, manifesto, and gaming commentary. The audience is meant to be strung along, experiencing a nightmare sequence which affords you no autonomy, not even the autonomy to interpret what you’ve just seen. It is always witty and intelligent, but not designed to please: somebody walked out halfway through the opening night, and somebody else may have been evicted (or was that also part of the pretence?).
After the spectacle, I asked Tobias about the creation of the play. Lovely in person, a far cry from his intense, bolt-like stage presence, he eloquently linked the chaos of the Anarchy era to the breakdown of the US, recommended the book Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant (who, according to a quick reddit search, “ruled the Chicago English department with an iron fist”), and discoursed at length on his love for medieval castle towers. The play is clearly very thoroughly researched, perhaps even fact-checked, if that’s the kind of thing that tickles your fancy.
Nonetheless, it’s a rough-hewn, rebellious show, and proud of it. I call it Beckettian because it’s a little like sitting through Waiting for Godot: you’re impressed by the speed at which the players talk, you’re catching tail ends of phrases and utterly perplexed by what you’re hearing. Somebody laughs at what you assume is a reference you didn’t get. The show is made to overwhelm, to overstimulate. It’s uproariously funny at times. It stretches towards the carnivalesque (although this depends on whether the audience is willing to stand on their chairs and holler, when asked to do so).
But for all its recalcitrant and unapologetic spectacle-making, the show is forgiving. The performers break character to thank the person who walked out. It offers you tea and cordial. It may, in future iterations, offer you a hand in the glorious goth-dance. So I say: do not go gentle into that good night. Let loose and go forth, disquietly, into the anarchy!
