The Twilight Zone

devised by Anne Washburn from the TV series

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 20 Jauary 2018

Richard Jones directs a cast of ten in a clever adaptation of eight stories from the cult TV series The Twilight Zone (1959-64), with the set designed by Paul Steinberg and the costumes by Nicky Gillibrand. The actors play multiple parts in the stories, which are interwoven rather than being depicted consecutively, giving an added distancing effect to the already uncanny and often disturbing individual stories.

The original series consisted of independent dramas aimed at destabilising comfortable assumptions about the ways of the world, either through the irruption of the paranormal, or through alien invasions or other science-fiction motifs. This play opens with a classic gambit, travellers stranded in a bar due to a snow storm, with rumours of something uncanny, other than the storm, having occurred nearby. The twist is that the bus driver distinctly remembers that he six passengers originally boarded the bus, but there are seven stranded people in the bar - so one of them must be an alien. There follows a predictable series of arguments and defensive ploys as everyone bickers about what could be going on. The denouement is withheld until after several other stories have got underway, but it has a neat twist of its own.

The fun is to be had with the storylines rather than with the characters; on the whole these are generic people caught up in awkward situations, and there is little to stir interest in hem as individuals. There are two exceptions to this, the first a nasty story of neighbourly panic and vindictiveness when the local doctor, who has wisely built a fallout shelter, refuses to admit anyone other than his own family when the sirens go off. The resulting arguments about who deserves to be saved are ugly, and immediately topical as the claims and counter claims reflect the all-too-familiar bigotries of the current climate. The second is the more poignant story of an astronaut falling in love just before embarking on a 50-year expedition with cryogenic hibernation to keep him young - it all ends badly though again there is an unexpected reversal in expectations.

Apart from that, the style of acting and the constant interweavings militate against close sympathy, but encourage confusion and disquiet. The set is a box of blackness with fuzzy stars; the actors when they are moving stage props are dressed in boiler suits and face masks which match this backdrop so that when still they are only just visible; all the stage props and the costumes are monochrome as well. The delivery of many speeches is absurdly hokey, but this is in keeping with the portentous style of the original series, and when various actors break out of character to deliver some of the typical narrative links, others on stage look at them with complete befuddlement.

There is also room a delighted admiration for some superb pieces of stage business. There is a running joke about smoking cigarettes, whereby several characters claim not to smoke, or even never to have smoked (unlikely to be much cause for comment in the late 1950s and early 1960s), and yet they often have a cigarette mysteriously to hand, and even in the act of trying to discard it, find another still obstinately there. This is matched by an even more brilliant sleight of hand whereby the lead photograph in a daily newspaper alters chillingly even as people apparently carry the newspaper with them on stage. The first time this happens, one laughs at the trick. The second time, when one half expects it, the thrill is that it is still difficult to see how it was done.

Good fun, if not very deep, and perhaps especially good fun for aficionados of the original. I never saw more than one or two of the TV episodes, and many in the audience were far too young to have done so (unless they have been watching DVDs or YouTube) but nonetheless we all found it very entertaining.