{"id":1856,"date":"2019-07-23T22:49:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T21:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2019-07-24T08:12:56","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T07:12:56","slug":"propwatch-the-takeaway-cartons-in-the-end-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/07\/propwatch-the-takeaway-cartons-in-the-end-of-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the takeaway cartons in the end of history\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I love food, but I love cooking even more. The shopping\nand chopping, the stirring and serving. Cooking for other people is a pleasure,\na game, an expression of care. At heart, I\u2019m a caterer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it was remarkably upsetting to see food repeatedly announced yet never enjoyed in Jack Thorne\u2019s new play the end of history\u2026<\/a><\/em> at the Royal Court. Each of the three acts \u2013 set a decade apart, from 1997 to 2017 \u2013 takes place around the kitchen table, each at a meal that is destined to remain uneaten. The inedible curry simmering rather less violently than the family argument alongside; the Chinese takeaway that remains huddled in its foil cartons while a crisis develops; the lasagne left to cremate in the oven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a running joke in the play about Sal (an\nincandescent Lesley Sharp) and her terrible cooking. Her adult children deliver\nmany criticisms of her parenting, but, brilliantly, this isn\u2019t one of them. Sal\nisn\u2019t slattern-shamed, nor is her lack of interest in catering used against her\n(except for an affectionate family giggle). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I interviewed<\/a> Thorne and his director, John Tiffany, while the play was still in rehearsal, they told me that early drafts had served up the scran, until Tiffany suggested it should never reach the table. \u2018I was like: you can either direct the play and text,\u2019 Tiffany said, \u2018or you could spend four weeks working out how to cook and serve food. Much as I love Nigella Lawson, that ain\u2019t my forte.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Countless family dramas crouch around the dinner table \u2013 choose between name-day cake with the Three Sisters<\/em>, the curdled celebration of Festen<\/em> or Titus Andronicus<\/em>, where family is on the menu as well as the seating plan. That the food isn\u2019t eaten in the end\u2026 <\/em>(except for a nibble sneaked by the rancidly posh in-law Harriet [Zoe Boyle, pictured top] who, despite honking on about her MSG intolerance, prises open a takeaway carton while everyone else deals with an attempted suicide) suggests how singular a play it is. It’s a family drama, sure: but one that marks the energy of the family bond, yet also insists that it isn\u2019t the only \u2013 certainly not the prime \u2013 value on which to centre a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sal (Lesley Sharp) making cheese on toast. Photos by Johan Persson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As someone lectured me recently on \u2018family values\u2019, I wondered what they meant by the term. To them, it meant the tight, exclusive centrality of the nuclear unit \u2013 but there are other, more capacious meanings. For example, the values you learn from<\/em> your family and apply to the world. That has perhaps been an idea running through previous Thorne\/Tiffany collaborations like Let the Right One In <\/em>and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child<\/em>. It has certainly been Sal\u2019s project with her husband David (David Morrissey): to prepare their three children not for worldly success or personal contentment, but to live with sharpened set of principles to take out into the world. To make a difference, not to themselves or their immediate loved ones, but to society at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an audaciously idealistic project, and it more than skirts\nridicule. It\u2019s not how most of us choose to live, and when I read the script I\nshared the siblings\u2019 exasperation at their impossible parents. Parents who jibe\nat corporate careers or actively counter the social inequalities perpetuated by\ninherited wealth. They madden their kids, they might madden you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But seeing Tiffany\u2019s warm, kinetic production, I found\nmyself swept up in Sal\u2019s ferociously big heart. The absolute love she feels for\nher brood \u2013 especially Polly (Kate O\u2019Flynn), her spiky and intransigent daughter\n\u2013 was never in doubt, but nor was her commitment beyond the home presented as a\nthing to scoff at. Sharp gives a huge performance \u2013 revved-up chat, eyes popping\nwith curiosity, a florid range of gesture (flourish, point, claw the air) that achieves\nflamenco bravura. Her body, especially in the first act, thrums with vitality.\nTo love like Sal does doesn\u2019t feel selfish. It feels thrilling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were a character in the end\u2026 <\/em>I know too well\nwhat I\u2019d be doing. Spooning sweet-and-sour from the cartons and fretting about\ncondiments. The idea that you might grate the cheddar for cheese on toast (no\nmustard? Just a thought) but not pop it under the grill would cause me palpable,\ntwitchy distress. I\u2019d be wanting everyone to shut up and dig in while it\u2019s hot,\nI know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to be reminded that there\u2019s more, much more to life was salutary. Sal \u2018never learnt to cook,\u2019 says David, \u2018she never saw the point. Food was just what you ate in order to fuel your day.\u2019 There\u2019s a lot of superb, impassioned and witty talk in the play \u2013 Thorne gives everyone the gift of the gab and makes space for them to use it \u2013 but, especially in the movement-led transitions between the scenes, when looks caress and music bonds, it\u2019s also an achingly tender evening. Towards the end, the walls of Grace Smart\u2019s<\/a> apparently immutable kitchen melt away to reveal an open, sunlit world beyond. Values aren\u2019t confined in the domestic pressure cooker, but released. It\u2019s a heart-swelling image \u2013 one that feeds the soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love food, but I love cooking even more. The shopping and chopping, the stirring and serving. Cooking for other people is a pleasure, a game, an expression of care. At heart, I\u2019m a caterer. So it was remarkably upsetting to see food repeatedly announced yet never enjoyed in Jack Thorne\u2019s new play the end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322,321,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-props","9":"tag-propwatch","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}