EVERYTHING IS BETTER ON STAGE –

Aug. 22, 2024 – There are few certainties in David Ireland’s latest drama. It is slippery yet sincere, funny but serious, with an ending that might leave you none the wiser. A young out-of-work alcoholic is unsure about joining the 12-step programme until a former addict sweeps in as his sponsor to save him, or so it seems. Under the direction of Finn den Hertog, The Fifth Step sometimes feels oddly paced, with movement crudely contrived and a visual hallucination of a giant rabbit that seems borrowed from Donnie Darko and which is too abruptly abandoned. But this is a more intimate two-hander than Ireland’s usual fare, less blackly comic and perhaps more complex.

Lowden, as jittery Luka, and Gilder as the avuncular James, have an easy connection on stage, both giving intense performances without becoming overwrought. Lowden’s delivery sits between uneasy comedy and vulnerability, while Gilder’s character becomes more red-faced and paranoid, so you begin to suspect it is the sponsor who has fallen off the wagon and needs help.

More than a study of addiction or recovery, the play is a portrait of marooned young masculinity apparently in the throes of sexual crisis, although questions around homosexuality seem rather flat-footed, and Luka’s sexual self-discovery more a plot twist than rooted in psychology.

CONTINUE@TheGuardian