The Chairs, Almeida Theatre review ★★★★★

Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco was the founding father of absurdist theatre. Like many of his ‘anti-plays’, his 1952 title The Chairs subverts all notions of a narrative arch through a script that takes its performers round in circles, fizzing with cliché-shaming wordplay, moments of raw slapstick and a conclusion that makes a mockery of everything that’s come before.

While Ionesco’s plays could be seen to poke fun at the formulaic plots of their predecessors, the Almeida’s revival of The Chairs, helmed by former associate director of the Bush Theatre Omar Elerian (Misty), unfolds like a love letter to live theatre. Through crashing props, stunts gone awry and a tannoy blurting out backstage troubles, Elerian humorously demystifies the magic of the stage, while celebrating its resilience.

The Chairs at the Almeida. Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter. Credit: Helen Murray

A trio of aged physical theatre maestros – all graduates of the prestigious physical theatre school Jacques Lecoq and former Complicité collaborators – bring the tragicomedy to life. Complicité co-founder Marcello Magni plays the part of Old Man opposite his real-life partner, the brilliant, Olivier-winning Kathryn Hunter, as Old Woman. War Horse Choreographer and actor Toby Sedgwick plays the story’s infamous deaf-mute orator, plus the many stagehands that make Elerian’s production shine.

The couple are survivors in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world, who movingly reflect back on life with a detached air, as if they’ve already departed from it. They’ve invited an audience of anyone and everyone – bankers, ballet dancers, leavers and remainers – to hear the Old Man share his beliefs on the meaning of life. Unlike in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which premiered the following year and was heavily inspired by Ionesco’s work, the couple’s guests do arrive (albeit in invisible form), but will the orator be able to deliver Old Man’s message?

The Chairs at the Almeida. Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni. Photo: Helen Murray

Elerian has translated The Chairs from its native French himself, and the pithy wordplay and playful rhymes embellishing the script are a real feat.

This is metatheatre; a play in layers, where the performers break from character to speak to the audience, not as themselves but as actors in another dimension. Meanwhile, the characters spend much of the play waiting for their own audience to materialise, and in Elerian’s clever production, the play’s famous ending is itself subverted, with Sedgwick talking the audience through what usually happens in the anticlimactic final throes before stepping back into character to perform it. Doing so adds further texture to Ionesco’s already disruptive drama, elongating the farce.

The Chairs at the Almeida. Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter. Credit: Helen Murray

Visualising the layers of this production is a set by co-designers Cécile Trémolières and Naomi Kuyck-Cohen. Rows of sweeping curtains dwarf the focal couple, rising and falling clumsily, dropping entirely or revealing peeping props before their queue. No suspending your disbelief here; these humorous ‘accidents’ gleefully shatter any illusions about the magic of theatre.

Magni and Hunter, dressed like old-fashioned marionettes in monochrome collars and ruffles, are a tight double act who clown in sync – his shell-shocked, unfocused gaze yin-yanning with her impish, manic grin.

A special mention must go to Jackie Shemesh’s lighting, which enables simple silhouettes projected against the curtains to carry the farce in several moments.

The Chairs at the Almeida. Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni. Credit: Helen Murray

What lets Elerian’s production down, though, is that several scenes outstay their welcome. As the army of chairs builds on the stage to Elena Peña and Pete Malkin’s nightmarish soundscape, the sheer length of this skit makes it more tedious than terrifying. And while Sedgwick’s final, out-of-character speech adds another layer to the narrative, a shorter, sharper monologue could have done so more effectively.

Still, Elerian delivers a faithful revival of The Chairs that cleverly manages to further subvert Ionesco’s farce. He deconstructs every element of what makes a play to celebrate the magic of live theatre.