Exploring what is permissible in theatre, the audience laughs, learns, and are challenged, sometimes all in the same sentence
Segio Blanco’s latest production about desire, death, and what comes next lives up to the Arcola’s reputation for putting on daring, high-quality theatre. Through a self-referential narrative about a playwright wanting to die – and wishing for his corpse to be defiled – When You Pass Over My Tomb encourages the audience to question whether our social norms are as reasonable as they first appear, exploring necrophilia, assisted suicide and ultimately what is appropriate to present on the stage.
Blanco’s script revels in blurring the line between performance and experience. The play is an ‘autofiction’, weaving real and fantastical events into its narrative, ‘Sergio’ the character being the selfsame ‘Sergio’ who wrote this play. Similarly, the ‘actors’ introduce themselves at the play’s opening (delightfully localised to London); the performance space remains lit throughout the production; and at one point the playtext’s cast notes are read aloud. The audience is left with the distinct impression that they are part of the production, rather than passive observers of it.
It’s astonishing that a play tackling such provocative topics, and so rich in literary references – Sartre, Byron, Shelley and even Blanco’s previous work all get multiple mentions – doesn’t feel at all pretentious. When You Pass Over My Tomb remains engaging and accessible throughout its runtime, helped in no small part by Al Nedjari’s understated charisma as Sergio, the playwright who wants to die: never far from commenting on how difficult a particular scene was to write, or bellowing instructions to the technical team.
When You Pass Over My Tomb’s real genius lies in its use of humour to maintain momentum, refusing to let the audience fully digest its morbid ideas. This avoids desensitisation from instinctive revulsion, and you are left with much to mull over on the train ride home. Whilst this shifting tone makes it harder to care about the characters onstage, you get the impression that’s not really the point; and Al Nedjari, Charlie MacGechan and Danny Scheinmann are skillful enough to play on the audience’s heartstrings when required.
Art, at its best, challenges an audience to see the world differently, and When You Pass Over My Tomb achieves this like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Shining a light on both the social taboos of its subject and what is permissible in the theatre, the audience laughs, learns and is challenged, sometimes all in the same sentence. This is everything I feared when I first started seeing so-called ‘proper theatre’, but also everything that makes the medium so exciting. A fantastically chunky and surprisingly accessible play that everyone should take a chance to get their teeth into.
When You Pass Over My Tomb plays at the Arcola Theatre until March 2nd, Mondays-Saturdays at 7:30pm, with Saturday matinees. Purchase tickets here.