Naima Khan reviews Haunted Child at Royal Court theatre, a missed opportunity for intelligence to ride alongside humour in a discussion of conviction and belief.
The easiest and arguably one of the most effective ways to discuss an issue intelligently in a play is to use intelligent characters. Without them the play itself, the structure, the set, the very heart of the show has to be really clever. Unfortunately, Joe Penhall's latest work, Haunted Child, falls short on all counts.
His story follows Julie – a strong Sophie Okonedo – a struggling mother whose husband has abandoned her and their son to join a cult. Doug, played with a funny vulnerability and conviction by Ben Daniels, struggles with self-doubt and a lack of guidance. His issues, having snowballed over the years, have finally caused him to snap and leave his family. When he returns a bloody and broken mess, his wife negotiates the place he should have in their lives.
Doug's new found cliché-ridden religion is based on "esoteric thought in relation to the technology industry," he tells his wife. From his vague pontifications, the group he's joined seems to place spirituality in a contemporary, technological context but it doesn't make sense to Julie and it sure doesn't make sense to us. Rather, this substantial side of the script feels like no more than a missed opportunity to discuss what Doug gets from his beliefs that he doesn't get from his wife.
Penhall falls into the trap of wrapping it all up too nicely without probing it properly. There's much talk of training, meditation and renunciation as well as money and wind farms, but for the most part these ideas are neither new, nor interesting. On the rare occasion they do get our attention, they are only ever discussed on a cursory level. “Why does Darwinism and spirituality have to be mutually exclusive?” he asks poignantly, but we get no further exploration. Penhall chooses instead to focus on the domestic effect of Doug's dogged beliefs.
To his credit, the domesticity of it all is done well. Julie is brave, confused and hopeful, but wary. Doug is convinced he now has the tools to help his family but has no idea how this fits into a context beyond his group. Despite excellent performances from the small cast, the script leaves much to be desired and neither the direction nor the design aids its shortcomings. Consequently, the provocative notion of a belief system overriding an already established, loving commitment remains disappointingly unexplored.
Haunted Child runs at Royal Court until 14th January.
Image by Johan Persson
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