'Damned By Despair' Is the Worst National Theatre Production In a Long Time

Damned by Despair, the National Theatre’s newest production, is getting some HOT BUZZ online. Time Out’s audience rating is halfway between zero and one star, with several commenters demanding a “negative star” system be introduced in celebration of its debut. “Possibly the worst play I have ever seen,” cries one elated audience member. “Either the biggest mistake the NFT has made… or some bizarre experiment at the audience’s expense in psychological endurance,” another satisfied customer adds.

One more jubilant viewer says of the £5 preview experience: “Absolute load of drivel. I left at the interval and was followed out of the theatre by many others.” Indeed, overwhelmed by the sheer force of theatre in action, many of the play’s early audience members have found themselves unable to return for Act II. An absolute triumph for the drama.

Seriously, though, people hate this play. Twitter is mad about it, all the blogs are mad, someone wrote an open letter on the NT’s Facebook, begging them to pull the show before press night for the “sake of” the National Theatre itself. Well, press night was last night and it just sounded like so much fun that I had to go along. Would it be, as some on the net had suggested, “the worst play I have ever seen”? Would I die of disappointment when the main character was “about as macho as a pile of custard”? Would I rather “bite off my own thumb and choke on it 'til my lungs exploded through my nostrils”??

Long story short: no. It is bad, but it's not that bad. However, legend of its badness had, by this point, reached such a height that the audience had a real “all in this together” vibe, as though we were about to go through some kind of theatrical blitzkrieg and had to keep calm, carry on and eat overpriced wasabi peas to present a united front. It seemed to me like panic edits had happened, because the play was very short – barely two hours instead of the two hours and 35 minutes it began as this week – and reviews from the preview describe all kinds of hilarious pyrotechnics and ludicrously complex choreography that seem to have been axed from the production that I saw. There was still a needless slow-motion shoot out and a truly INSANE ascension-into-heaven scene, though, so not all is lost.

Don’t get me wrong, it is still very, very bad. But in the realm of “bad theatre”, I’ve seen worse and so have you. (Everyone has a friend who’s performed a one-man, mimed show about Rwandan genocide, right?) (No offence, Paul, your object work is very good.) Most of its problems are problems of mainstream theatre, generally: lots of white people shouting at each other to substitute for emotional investment, subject matter that doesn’t resonate with contemporary audiences and a clunky script that has been "updated" from its 17th century original to include words like “bling” and “do a runner”, so that the audience is assured the playwright knows what iPads are/ is in touch with the #youthoftoday.

People are mad about the set (wrongly, it looks like the original Planet of the Apes and The Lion King had a baby, AKA, it is perfect), they're mad about Bertie Carvel not being "masculine" enough as a gangster and they're mad about the plot being confusing, but, for some reason, not enough people are mad about the National’s choice to put a 17th century Roman Catholic allegory onstage as if it is suddently relevant to us all.

Like, seriously, the message of the play is “Jesus is gr8! U better be sorry for sinning or U don’t get 2 go 2 heaven LOL.” Sticking in some shitty attempt at modern day slang doesn’t change the fact that the play you’re performing requires an extreme level of Catholic belief for any kind of emotional investment in the fate of the characters. Literally who believes in the Devil anymore? Bar an alarming amount of people in America and my weird uncle.

There were still a substantial number of walkouts. The two worst people in the whole world (“Basically, that’s why I don’t follow trends. I just have my own style” – girl in a fedora) were seated beside me for Act I and did not deign to return for Act II, which was actually a smart move on their part because Act II is much worse than Act I. Full disclosure: I’ve been stressing this entire time about whether or not I’m going to sound like a moron talking about Acts I and II in a play that I presume uses a five-act structure. But I also now just sound like a nerd, and which is worse?

Regardless, theatre nowadays is in a spot of trouble, don’t you think? It can’t survive on middle class laughter at the word “pleb” forever and I swear to god, if I have to deal with another bit of 'meaningful acapella' I’m going to kill myself. It’s also a shame that this play is one being produced with Travelex £12 tickets, meaning povo young people like me can actually afford to go, but really don’t want to. If those discounts were applied to productions that young people actually wanted to see, then theatre might finally experience this renaissance that people who run theatres have been hoping will happen for the last 40 years.

Towards the end of the play, two characters are spared death where their former leader has been gunned down. Leaving them alone on Pride Rock to contemplate salvation, a policeman says, “Look on this and learn. Let that be your punishment.” To which I say: AUDIENCE, KNOW THYSELF. Ask for better please.

Follow Monica on Twitter: @monicaheisey

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