Great timing can be a fascinating thing to experience. Our past year of pandemic social distancing has changed how we interact with each other. Theaters have closed down. Streaming entertainment partially filled the void. Herding Cats has arrived at the moment when audiences are tip-toeing back into their seats. Although Lucinda Coxon wrote her play ten years ago there is a thematic connection to right now that is hard to ignore.
Director Anthony Banks staged this piece as both an in person event from London’s Soho Theatre while live streaming to home viewers. The production adds another level of technical prowess by transmitting one character via video link from Los Angeles. The overall effect is expertly realized and completely supports and enhances the storytelling.
Justine (Sophie Melville) and Michael (Jassa Ahluwalia) are flatmates. Their vibe is wholly platonic. She comes home from work grousing about her boss as she unloads her groceries. Dealing with him, she says, is like herding cats. Over the course of this eerily uncomfortable play we will learn how complicated, fragile and frisky those human relationships can be.
Justine recalls inappropriate behavior from her boss which has overt sexual overtones. Meanwhile Michael is a telephone sex worker who gets paid to engage in overt sexual overtones. Saddo (Greg Germann) is one of his clients. Michael acts out a little girl fantasy for him. It is as creepy as it sounds. Everything and everyone is off-kilter to some extent. As a result, Justine’s self-diagnosis near the end of the play is accurate. “Sometimes I fell like I’m holding it all up, all on my own,” she remarks.
The vignettes in this play vary from comedic to chillingly disturbing. This has the effect of destabilizing the viewer. At one point, I wondered to myself if Justine and Michael were doppelgangers of each other. I was reminded of the unstable brain from Matt Ruff’s fictional novel, Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls. For those who enjoy weighty introspective themes and coloring far outside the lines, Herding Cats has a lot of nuance to sink your teeth into.
The marvelous set design by Grace Smart puts a bright light on the examinations in process. The transatlantic streaming of Saddo onto a video screen projection gives the sex chat scenes a voyeuristic ickiness that elevates the feeling of disconnectedness. The effect is disturbing and off-putting as intended. The three actors excel at inhabiting these vaguely drawn yet realistic souls adrift in their own rough seas of isolation.
Loneliness and anger factor mightily into these character’s psyches. Each of them exist on wobbly legs so there never seems to be emotional stability. The action occurs over a period of time. Important questions are asked but not really answered. How will these two young people chart their life’s course after this play has ended? That question may be as hard to answer as it is to herd cats together.
The final performance of Herding Cats is scheduled for May 22, 2021 and can be accessed via Stellar Tickets website through May 24th. The show will be rebroadcast on Stellar from June 7 through the 21st.