I was enthralled by Annie Baker’s plays The Flick and John, which extracted strange drama from mundane settings: in one case a Massachusetts cinema and in the other a Gettysburg boarding house. But, while her latest play at first fascinates, it eventually runs out of narrative steam, which is odd considering its main theme is the function of stories in modern life.
Baker’s setting is an anonymous conference room, where a group of people sit round a shiny table telling and dissecting stories. We assume, though we are never precisely told, that they are working for some entertainment industry mogul whose voice we spasmodically hear.
Their search is for something monstrous but, under the seemingly benign chairmanship of a figure called Sandy, they are encouraged to offer uncensored stories from their own lives. The talk ranges from their first sexual experiences to memories of their biggest fears to meditations on the nature of time. But, as Sandy gradually withdraws from their meetings and a violent storm rages outside, it becomes clear that their quest has reached a terminal stage.
Initially I was intrigued, not least by the notion that the monstrous is to be found not in elves and trolls but in the events of daily life. One of the best stories is told by a character called Danny M2 (because there is another Danny), who poignantly describes his regret at failing to pick up the chickens he was supposed to protect on a summer job at a farm: that is classic Baker in that she finds the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. There are also some sharp moments of satire as when Sandy itemises his awed reverence for some narrative guru who was also a drunk and a bigot. But, Sandy sardonically adds, “he never held that against anyone.”
Baker’s play falls apart only when the characters are left to their own devices and when it seeks to make general statements. The search for an all-purpose creation myth lacks the vivid particularity of the accounts of personal lives. The play also dwindles into a standard apocalypse drama. It is one thing to be told that it’s the end of an era and that “actually this is the worst possible time in the history of the world to be telling stories”. But the lack of any defined social context – something Baker was so good at in her earlier plays – robs this idea of any real chill.
Baker and designer Chloe Lamford co-direct the play well and some performances stand out. Conleth Hill is excellent as Sandy, showing how his rumpled charm conceals a ruthless misogyny and manipulativeness. There is also fine work from Stuart McQuarrie as the rueful chicken-tender exiled for embroidering the truth, from Sinéad Matthews as a part-Icelandic fabulist who finds evidence of monstrosity in her own family, and from Imogen Doel as Sandy’s PA, who gets in on the action by offering her own variation on the Hansel and Gretel myth.
In the end, Baker implies that, even in dark times, the urge to tell stories obstinately persists. But this still feels like a thesis-drama, created to prove a point rather than, as in Baker’s best work, a play that allows ideas to emerge from the interaction of people.
• At The National Theatre, London, until 23 November.
