The National Theatre opened its 2019 repertoire with the first production since Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet at the Barbican in 2015 to excite such demand that tickets were allocated by ballot, with rumours of the unsuccessful offering winners four figures for their seat.

When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other
National Theatre, London

The National Theatre opened its 2019 repertoire with the first production since Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet at the Barbican in 2015 to excite such demand that tickets were allocated by ballot, with rumours of the unsuccessful offering winners four figures for their seat.

The reason for this bidding frenzy was the casting of a double Oscar-winning movie superstar, Cate Blanchett. Anticipation had been further fanned by reports of preview audiences fainting or walking out because of scenes of sex and violence.

Perhaps more unusually, I was also excited by the writer. Previous plays by Martin Crimp – Dealing with Clair (1988), Attempts on her Life (1997), The Treatment (1993) – established his signature of unusually open texts (often with unattributed dialogue and no stage directions) that offer multiple possible meanings. Recent London revivals of The Treatment and Dealing with Clair, which I enthusiastically reviewed here, confirmed Crimp’s skill with tense, ambiguous situations, in which a single word, or even change of tense, can have catastrophic implications.

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