Theraplay and Other Plays

The main characters of these five plays by Christopher Bollas struggle to survive in a post "Catastrophe" world. As they go about ordinary life it is clear that something insidious has both preceded their existence, coloured it, and is everywhere and nowhere. Like the existential universe of some plays of the 1950s - Ionescu, early Pinter, Beckett - human meaning is in meagre supply, but Bollas's work (clearly following in this tradition) examines through a new lens existence in the 21st century. He explores a damaged self that strives to find a way to live in a world devoid of meaning. One lives to fulfill a function. The plays portray a commoditised being (self as dead labour), and the absurd context in which many of the characters live seems eerily premonitional, as if some rough new character formation is slouching towards us all. "Theraplay": a theatre company has one day to change the life of a damaged man. "Old Friends": a friendship comes to an end on grounds so petty that causation is up for laughs. "Piecemeal": a dinner party that descends into madness. "Apply Within": a man assigned the task of interviewing people for a job that has never been explained to him. "Your Object or Mine", a farce about a rock collector who visits a psychoanalyst to sort out the rock's object relations. These plays are dark, oddly amusing-at times hilarious-but also deeply moving. Bollas finds redemption within human frailty. His character's bewilderment in the face of absurd conditions becomes an embarkation point for recovery from social disaster. If the world as we knew it has gone missing in action, we can return as if we were comic installation art forms constructed from debris.