A mixture of transparency and mystery
Crowded streets are lonely in London. Here, as in New York, every third person you pass has tuned out the world by cell phone or iPod or BlackBerry. Human connection is hard when everybody is sealed off in a private cocoon in the ether.
Simon Stephens’s “Harper Regan,” which I caught Tuesday night at the National, captures this solitariness – and the exasperation that comes with it – better than any contemporary play I can think of. On one level, this tale of a woman who leaves her home and family on the outskirts of London to lose and find herself is a classic study in existential isolation, a subject dear to the hearts of British playwrights. But without being bloated by topical references and visible technology, it also captures an anomie that feels piercingly particular to this time.
Thanks !