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Anna X

 


When: 3rd August 2021 (Matinee)

Where: Harold Pinter Theatre, London

Writer: Joseph Charlton

Director: Daniel Raggett


(Spoilers ahead)

This play follows the love story between Anna (Emma Corrin) and Ariel (Nabhaan Rizwan) and at the end it reveals that Anna was not who she said she was, although to what extent is unclear. It was advertised as being a play about social media, but this wasn't really the main focus and in fact had little relevance to the story. There were themes of fake identity which are prevalent on social media, but in the plays context it wasn't really to do with this. 

I think the story could have been something good, it had elements that were interesting. There were a few choices made that were clever, for example the fact that Anna spoke in second person, saying 'you' as if she wasn't telling her own story but was imagining it for someone else. However, I don't think it was developed enough. I was left feeling unsatisfied, the ending was very predictable and I was left with too many questions. One of the biggest issues I had was that we were given no information as to why Anna had committed fraud and larceny, Ariel said that she was one step away from her final goal, but what was her final goal? If the rest of what she said was fake then was she really an artist and was her art foundation her final goal? We weren't given the information to understand this. Another was that we never got an explanation as to what really went wrong with Ariel's app and why. I felt as if it was supposed to be linked to Anna but it really wasn't clear if it was or just that his own credibility crashed with hers.

I am not a big fan of using a lot of direct narrative. At the beginning I felt it took a long time for me to get into the story, the use of the characters just simply telling us wasn't intriguing enough as I thought an opening should have been, and I was glad that it was used less and less as the play progressed. Possibly because of this it took both actors a while to settle into actually playing their characters when it switched to dialogue. Both actors made a few mistakes early on and for this being the day before the final performance it felt odd. Throughout there was some strong acting. Nabhaan Rizwan played his character well it was realistic and convincing. However I struggled a little with Emma Corrin's portrayal of Anna. I felt that Corrin was holding back, and it felt clear that she was acting. This may have been a directorial choice, maybe they wanted to show that Anna was maybe not a very good con artist, but, this wasn't my initial reaction. If someone is going to play a character that cannot act I think they need to be very assured in their performance however, this felt unassured and I couldn't tell whether it was just bad acting or whether she had been asked to act badly. 

In contrast, the videography in this play was amazing, the use of the screens linked it to the themes well, it provided the backdrop and set the scene. I loved the text messages where they would read it out and the texts would appear on the screen behind, it was fun. The scenes in the bar where they were dancing with the loud music and lights, were really effective and the way they drowned out the actors and put their lines on the screen was brave. However there were moments when the screen drowned them out too much and it felt as if they were fighting against it. This was the star of the show and it outshone the actors for much of the play. I also loved the way they used blocks that stuck out of the screens in a variety of ways to help the actors interact with the setting. My favourite part was when the screen spilt and we saw Anna stood on top. We saw the plain stage for the first time, they hadn't done anything to it, it was bare and you could see the pipes and radiators, it perfectly reflected the way that we now saw the true Anna, not the fake character she had created. 

Overall there were some sections of this play that intrigued me, that were interesting and clever. However the play as a whole, I felt, needed more polishing. I felt that this wasn't yet a finished product, there were too many untied endings and the story didn't manage to reach the tension and excitement that it should have. With some changes I think it could be something interesting, but I don't think it's there yet.

This was the third and final play in the Re:Emerge season at the Harold Pinter, with the first being Walden and second J'Ouvert. Out of all of them this was my least favourite, for me it was the weakest. J'Ouvert felt much more like an experience, and it made me think about things. Walden (probably my favourite) was tidy, it wasn't that special or different, but it was just nice and everything was tied up properly. I also think the characters were well developed and it touched on some social issues. I'm not the biggest fan of non-naturalistic productions, I prefer realism, its easier to connect to and I think it has more impact on people in the real world. This may have been a factor into my opinions on these plays, particularly as Anna X seems to be the favourite with theatre critics. However, I really enjoyed getting back to the theatres, and seeing a new play every month was exciting, I feel sad that it's over and there isn't another next month, but I have booked more tickets and have other exciting plays to look forward to.

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