How useful is the political play as a form? That is the question I was left with as I left the RSC and Headlong’s new production of David Edgar’s The New Real at The Other Place in Stratford. Is it a genuine expression of political ideas, or just two people shouting their views at each other? Is it possible to look back at a single point in history and identify the seeds of our present moment?

Before the play starts, the screens in the set play a montage of scene-setting footage (a joy for a political and history junkie like me). These screens also help to establish scenes, starting with a lecture hall in the 1990s and a lecture by Harvard professor Kenneth Helms (Daon Broni) setting out the context of Eastern Europe. We also see a men’s bathroom where two political strategists – Rachel Moss (Martina Laird) and Larry Yeates (Lloyd Owen) play out the classic political strategist argument: how far do we go to win? Do we play fairly or do we use ‘dirty tricks’? Moss is then hired to advise a presidential candidate in a fictional European country on how to fight and win an ethical campaign. She takes her Northern polling guru Caro (Jodie McNee) to advise her. To say any more risks ruining the surprises but these decisions and this election will, the play argues, impact the current day.

The major problem with The New Real is its ambition

This play fits neatly into two aspects of David Edgar’s career. It’s his tenth play at the RSC (he has written a show in the RSC every decade since the 1970s) and is a natural follow-up to his unplanned trilogy of plays about a fictional Eastern European country, jokingly christened ‘Edgravia’ (1990’s The Shape of the Table, 1994’s Pentecost and 2001’s The Prisoner’s Dilemma). He has also written prominently about politics, attracting controversy for his 1975 play Destiny about the far right in Britain, also performed at the RSC.

Regrettably, there are problems with the play. It risks hammering home the connection between then and now by quoting fragments of later political discourse. ‘Citizens of nowhere’, the ‘liberal elite’ and ideas of ‘perversion’ all get a namecheck here, all arguably too early. If you were being charitable, you would argue that Edgar is asserting that the roots of this discourse is in this earlier period, but this seems like a logical fallacy.

The acting is good across the board… but the play would die without the central two performances

The major problem with The New Real is its ambition. It tries to get a lot of themes in, meaning that few have any major development. Brexit (surprisingly foisted in) happens essentially offstage and is conveyed through a video of Caro leaving Moss a message. The rise of conspiracy theories, and the idea that everyone has their own narrative which is true to them (both of which could sustain plays in their own right) are given single scenes. The main thing Edgar seems to be interested in is the ‘left-behind’ in his fictional European state, in Britain in the Red Wall and in the US, as represented by Flint, Michigan’s own Larry Yeates. This is interestingly explored, yet so often devolves into Yeates and Moss shouting their views at each other. They are interesting views, but it’s still slightly inert.

The acting is good across the board, with special praise for McNee, who is given some of the best lines of the play and performs them with aplomb. The two presidential candidates are also worthy of praise, as both have to go through dramatic changes for the sake of the story (one more justified than the other) and Patrycja Kujawska and Roderick Hill both deserve plaudits. But the play would die without the central two performances and Laird and Owen both deliver excellent performances. Owen varies between cooly cynical and fierily passionate, while Laird delivers an excellent performance as someone having their inherent assumptions about the world questioned.

It is a slight shame that these performances are in this play, with its many problems. Some of these problems are inherent in the form, though this is changing with playwrights like James Graham finding a new way to present differing arguments and historical narratives. And there is still nothing like the rush of watching ideas being exchanged on the stage.

Verdict: Though there are some problems, the performances, innovation of the staging and the interesting nature of some of its ideas mean that this play is well worth checking out.

Rating: 4/5

The New Real runs at The Other Place, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Until 2 November 2024

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