Sarah
The Coronet Theatre
 

ADAPTED from Scott McClanahan’s semi-autobiographical novel this amusingly dark dismantling of the American Dream is brilliantly performed by Jonathan Singer as Scott.

Addressing the audience directly, Scott opens his monologue by boasting that he is a skilled and experienced drunk driver. His description of a close call with a traffic cop veers from amusingly anarchical to childishly destructive, but the humour is undercut when he introduces the potential ramifications of his actions with his distressed children being his forgotten passengers.

This paradoxical narrative approach to the breakdown of his marriage and his sense of loss and fear hidden behind a slobbish facade and a series of spontaneous yet frequently inappropriate actions dominates the 90-minute play.

The boredom and pointlessness of his existence is deconstructed in a series of engaging episodes including burning the family bible and laughably attempting to hide it from the garbage collectors to accusations of downloading multiple porn sites including Imapervert.com and Utorture.com.

The darkness of the vision is lightened by the absurdity of his actions such as sending repeated messages warning of his impending suicide in case the earlier ones were misinterpreted.

Singer fills the stage with both the detritus of his life and his exploits in a nuanced, charismatic performance that is spot on with both the Appalachian accent and regional mannerisms. His impotent rage with existence, finding vent in drink and broken relationships, is amusingly depicted without a touch of sentimentality.

The Berliner Ensemble artistic director, Oliver Reese, has done a remarkable job adapting and directing this performance so that you are hardly aware that it is a monologue or that the sizeable stage is fully utilised although costume changes and refreshments are all based around a solitary, upstage fridge.

Despite the bleak nature of Scott’s journey, the energy, humour and dysfunctional nature of his approach to life make for a riveting show. Nowhere is this more clearly apparent than in his winning description of an old mutt he and his wife charitably adopt. Their kindly actions obliviously invested in a blind, drooling creature suffering from testicular cancer, incontinence and the mange.

Runs until December 17 2022. Box office: 020 3642 6606, thecoronettheatre.com