Redundant (play)
| Redundant | |
|---|---|
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| Written by | Leo Butler |
| Date premiered |
2001 Royal Court in London |
| Original language | English |
Redundant by Leo Butler premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2001 starring Lyndsey Marshal and directed by Dominic Cooke.
Set in seventeen-year-old Lucy's Sheffield council flat, the play follows a year in the promiscuous teenager's life as she makes one disastrous choice after another. It is a dark, often humorous, examination of social poverty. In the introduction in his collected volume of plays, Butler writes of his central character Though she is a victim of poverty - in particular, poverty of imagination and of opportunity - Lucy is never a victim in her own home. She never gives up, and both her dreams, however delusional, and her tough, oppositional spirit remain unspoiled even by the end of the play.
It contained the first ever reference in theatre to Osama bin Laden where a character said that the whole country needed to be bombed by him to teach us all what suffering was. The play premiered at Royal Court on 12 September 2001 (the day after the attacks on the World Trade Center) receiving gasps from the audience. It was a major flop, even though it has been more recently recognised as a greater play than was originally thought.
The production is well known for its use of the downstairs stage at Royal court where the overhead arch had been lowered throughout the play until the final scene where it was raised as Lucy sat on the bed making her appear smaller and smaller and more and more redundant to the action.
Lyndsey Marshal won the Critics Circle Award for Best Newcomer for her performance in the play.
Reviews
The play divided critics but partial blame for that has been laid on the bin Laden reference which many thought had been inserted simply to shock even though it had been there before the September 11 attacks. There were positive reviews, however, such as The Stage which said;
written with gobsmacking psychological realism...Butler's text is full of evasions, projections and concealed aggression...this scorching drama is raw, raucous and disturbing, with a final stage picture of almost intolerable bleakness The Stage
The Evening Standard also wrote in its review that Butler boldly creates a psychologically complex female lead, surrounding her with unjudged dead-beats, each distinctively vocalising caustic Sheffield vernacular. He also looks to be a master of stage craft, subtly manipulating his audience and characters with dramatic reversals, before arriving at an ending that is inevitable, surprising and loaded with pity and fear.
- Evening Standard Evening Standard 13 September 2001
- Independent, Independent 19 September 2001
- British Theatre Guide British Theatre Guide 13 September 2001
There are also a selection of reviews are available on the royal court theatre website Reviews of Redundant from Royal Court Theatre archive