Rufus Hound (Gary) in It's Headed Straight Towards Us at the Park Theatre. Credit Pamela Raith PhotographyStarring Rufus Hound and Samuel West and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, the play (which as the title suggests, can best be described as a disaster-comedy) is set inside an on-location actors’ trailer, half-way up an active Icelandic volcano, upon which sits a fast melting glacier. When an avalanche removes the escape road and a footbridge crashes into the ravine it once traversed, it’s surely time to have a heart-to-heart with one’s agent about conditions, but the phone signal’s not great. All is not lost however, as Leela (Nenda Neurerer) the 21 year old runner on the film set, is by all accounts something of a vulcanologist and knows what’s what, irrespective that she also possesses a firm belief in the Huldufólk (invisible elves). Perhaps still more interesting is the unresolved question around her parentage and from whom she may have inherited her savvy genes.
At the centre of this absurd piece, is the deep-rooted contempt (insofar as actors can ever truly be credited with depth) which the leading characters feel for one another, which seemingly stemmed from their time together at drama college. One became a successful Hollywood-flash-in-the-pan, the other perhaps more aware of his humble upbringing and limitations, took a slower trajectory by playing a plethora of butler-style supporting parts. Thrust together again, they pick at old sores and bitch about perceived imbalances in their successes, situations and current predicament.
The script boasts some blistering rebukes and observational humour, with one notable moment in which theatre critics come in for a lambasting. Over all, the result is semi-farcical, funny and supremely silly in places, but it is those moments when a considered reflection and lowered guard are allowed, which bring light and shade to the piece and which almost elevate it to something more significant and poignant.
Despite depth restrictions, Michael Taylor has worked wonders with the set which periodically bounces into action as the Icelandic geology reacts to comments in the text… or maybe it’s just those invisible elves playing with our minds!
