Incognito

by Nick Payne

seen at the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York, on 28 May 2016

Doug Hughes directs Geneva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind and Morgan Spector in a production designed by Scott Pask and lit by Ben Stanton.

The actors take multiple roles in a play in which several story lines are developed contrapuntally, with only sudden changes of lighting indicating a scene change on a black stage with four black chairs. We follow the story of the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein and 'stole' his brain for further research (which is never published); the story of an epileptic whose most severe fit left him with a memory window of only a few minutes; the story of a psychologist embarking on a lesbian affair but hesitant to admit that she has been married and has a grown up son; and some of her interviews with clients.



The play interrogates the fundamental issue of the source of personality, and to what extent it is bound up with memory, with the ways in which we present ourselves to different people in different situations, and how all this is related to the sheer physicality of our brains and bodies. By presenting a kaleidoscopic series of scenes we re exposed to a huge array of ideas in a short space of time; but equally with only lighting cues and changes of accent to help us, we must remain extremely alert to keep track of what is happening.

The four cast members perform their multiple roles heroically. The rapid scene changes are extremely exposed from their point of view, often requiring high emotion to be switched off literally at the flick of a lighting switch, and it is a testimony to their formidable technique that this is never a problem. Once the structure of the play is established, it is easy enough to follow the rapid changes of scene and to keep abreast of the several story-lines. Some scenes are set in the UK while others are in the US, and it has to be said that the estuary dialect of the modern Londoner escapes the skill of the American members of the cast. (No doubt Americans may wince at some accents presented on the London stage.)

The case of Henry Maison, the epileptic with memory loss, poignantly underscores the structural approach. This story is the emotional core of the piece, around which the more journalistic story of Einstein's brain and the other narratives revolve. Henry's opening lines in the scenes with his wife are always the same; even after she leaves, he is always trapped into regarding any encounter with someone he did not know before his disastrous fit as the beginning of a new acquaintance. Charlie Cox brings great sensitivity to this difficult role, and as it becomes clear that decades pass with no improvement in his condition, one can feel for both the professionals who have to deal with him, and the frustration that he is only partly aware of. At the beginning his wife was always encouraging him to play the piano, at which he always faltered - this was seen by the doctor as a deluded hope on her part that his condition might improve. In the final scene, when he is alone and in his eighties, and he is asked once again to play, he begins to play beautifully; it is heartbreaking.

It was fascinating to see a third play by Nick Payne within a year. Like Constellations and Elegy, this play relies on short scenes and abrupt transitions, and tests the skills of the cast as much as the persistence of the audience. I feel that of the three, Elegy was the least satisfactory; while I am not sure that the title Incognito was actually explained by what we saw, I found this to be an impressive piece of work.