Relentless clowning diffuses the tension
4 / 10
Jeremy Herrin’s production, starring Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis, is staged as full-on farce. Herrin gives his big-name cast free rein to milk the text for every possible laugh, and chucks in a flurry of sight gags for good measure. It is often quite funny, but the relentless clowning interrupts the play’s rhythm, diffusing the tension and menace that should be building in the background. Rather than drawing a clear connecting line from the grubby locker-room talk of the play’s first few minutes to the brutal violence of its closing moments, Herrin instead leaves us with a series of amusing but disjointed punchlines.
