4 STARS
Imagine a world where you could enact your deepest, darkest, fantasies with no consequences whatsoever – including sexually abusing and murdering children. The Nottingham New Theatre’s startling production of The Nether invites the audience to experience the darkest side of humanity, and the consequences of the modern technological world we have created.
The Nether follows Detective Collins investigating an area of The Nether – a virtual reality experience where patrons can be completely immersed into fictional online realities. And this includes a Victorian mansion in which fake, virtual children allow patrons to live out their violent and sexual desires. As the lines between reality and fiction blur, and the nature of online ethics gets confused, the play calls into question what is truly acceptable and where our internet culture is heading.
This play is uncomfortable viewing, and it is all the stronger for it. Joe Strickland’s production design plays up to the audience’s discomfort, with bold strobe lighting and jarring sound effects that sound like an industrial-metal-music-box. The choice to stage the play with minimalist set encourages the audience to use their own imagination to fill in the gaps of the worlds being created. Whilst this use of negative space was effective, I did feel that the actors could have used more space to move around, particularly in the interrogation segments. Encouraging the audience to use their imagination becomes slightly more stretched when the “children” become involved, as the student actress is clearly not the nine-year old that the character states, but the convincing performance of Emma Pallett as Iris sells this reality to the audience.
The script is electrifying, the discussions are riveting, and all of the dialogue is tinged with a wonderful sense of unease and underlying horror. The performances of the cast were strong – JessicaLundholm as Detective Collins was particularly engrossing, as she is revealed to be far more complex than she first appears. Miguel Barrulas was also hugely sympathetic as Woodnut, fantastically building a tentative and tender, albeit nightmarishly twisted, relationship with Iris in their scenes together. The actors had to act across a diverse age range – with Doyle (Daniel McVey) and Papa (Jack Ellis) playing men in their fifties, to Pallett’s nine year old Iris – and whilst elements of these performances were a little caricatured, the plot twist at the end explains many of these choices. The final scene in particular features a fantastic exchange between Doyle and Papa that packed a real emotional weight to it.
This is a thought-provoking and thrilling piece of theatre, packed with twists and turns that will keep you guessing right up until the show’s final moments. There were times where I wished it was a little bit nastier – with so much horror taking place offstage, in the moments where it transferred to onstage they could have carried a little more weight. But the strength of this production is in the unseen, and the build-up to the inevitable. It will challenge you and disturb you – and it is all the better for it.
Image source: http://newtheatre.org.uk/whats-on/
Edited by: Jessica Greaney