Been to a play this week as usual, this time a fringe play at the Bush Theatre. It's an anti-capitalist rant and a mockery of anti-capitalism at the same time, titled The dYsFUnCKshOnalZ and commissioned for the Bush. To cut the story short it's about a disbanded punk group that decides to come together after a credit card company (The Freedom Company!) decides to use their anti-capitalist song as an advertisement jingle. "Plastic people in a plastic world..." Their lyrics get butchered by the credit company and Billy Abortion, as lead singer, defeatedly compromises his staunch Socialist views by agreeing to go on with the show. He pulls off a silly chesire-cat grin onstage and belts out the wonders of being able to buy a car, condominium and lead a fantastically happy life, all the while wrapped up in the star-spangled banner. Suddenly he fans the flag out - on which bold black F--- YOU is written - and starts slitting his wrists and throat in punk-esque fashion ('twas done in mock so it was funny). There's a big scandal and the band is catapulted to infamy; download hits sky-rocket and press coverage intensifies for the first time in years. The main thrust of the play, of course, is whether a person can truly escape from capitalism in spite of his utopian/socialist views. Billy Abortion ends the play crooning a Robbie Williams cover, obviously having left the dysfunckshonalz and his anti-capitalist principles...
Hilariously entertaining (if you appreciate dark humour), with characters named Billy Abortion, Mark Faeces and all (spoof of the likes of Johnny Rotten) and with an actual set in front of you so the characters actually play. Or attempt to, though the drummer (Pearce Quidley) was pretty good. The theatre was surprisingly small, with a max of 5 rows steeping upwards, such that the audience in the first row could actually come within 1m of the action. 'twas my first experience at a London fringe play, and it was thoroughly enjoyable.
After the play my mates and I went into the pub for a drink, and we ended up chatting till about 11.45pm. Maybe I was listening most of the time rather than actually giving comment, 'cuz the conversation took a gradual turn towards personal histories regarding exploitative relationships, sex and drugs. It wasn't just that I couldn't quite contribute to their stories, but I felt that while they were bringing up these painful memories no one else was listening, and the very helpless minimum I felt I could do was just to nod and listen... It's strange and not the first time I've noticed something like that here, whether in York or London - I've sat through quite a few group conversations where someone's talking about a painful past or a breakup, and everyone else around the table either jumps in with their own story or dismiss it saying, "oh you'll be fine, you'll get over it, you'll be alright", leaving the poor girl still in a fix of emotions and hurt and forcing her to move with the group's dynamics instead.
Anyways. I walked back home that Wednesday night with a deeper sense of the world's darkness (naive, how naive) and the ineffable pain it brings to life and relationships. E had a 3-year exploitative relationship with a paedophile when she was 15-18, and the bloke was jailed and rejailed for crimes relating to child pornography; R had to smoke a joint first thing in the morning for a period of her life just to feel that everything's ok, after which she goes through 6-7 more joints throughout the day - and that's just weed. "Drugs aren't meant to bring you down, they're meant to enlighten you. I can't believe what some of my friends are taking... I'll never touch those stuff. They're meant to bring you up, not down." "Women will always get hurt. I've never met a woman who's never been hurt." "Whenever I watch a show with someone leaving someone, I'll be completely shattered, I'll keep crying, and crying. J knows, she knows I'm terrified of her leaving me, I'll be devastated if she does." "I f-ing hate my f-ing uncle; on my mom's 21st birthday he gave her a pack of [insert drug name], and guess what he had to f-ing do? Line it with f-ing nicotine, and now my mom is f-ing smoking her way to hell like this [rapid repeats of cigarette-to-lip gesture]."
Makes the wrist-slitting, angsty punk rants, mock hate and anger in dysfunckshonalz.... not seem so funny anymore. It's real, it's so near, and seems so crushing. And it's not just the stories that're painful to hear; by the end of the night their insecure self-assertions, half-sober fazed eyes, lack of resolution to their emotional addiction to people and drugs, lack of a positive direction and the utter absence of real communication with one another... make the stories far more painful to bear. The storytellers themselves become a living and dying bottle choked full from the accumulation of hurt; and this bottle is breathing before your eyes, but gasping, tearing, and putting on a smile - everyday, every morning, before you, and before the rest of the world.
"Women will always get hurt. I've never met a woman who's never been hurt."
"I don't think so, R. I don't believe that's all there is to this world, and I don't believe that has to be the case."
"Aw, how sweet, J."
(R wears a weary smile which reveals that that's merely a nice thought and a consolation; for her it can never be true.)
