Misanthropy

Sam Siggs' self-consciously gritty new drama explores the importance of connecting to others in a confusing world, and graphically demonstrates what can happen when we fail to do so. The play can be commended for unflinchingly confronting the darkness of its subject matter, but can also be accused of revelling in it a little too much.

Six young Scots, each in their own way lost in the nightmare of their tangled personal circumstances, circle the corrosive tragedy at the play's centre: the rape of Faye (Katie Milne) at an art school party. A series of errors leads to a series of reactions, and one act of hideous violence triggers others, with the participants too self-involved or self-pitying to see the paradox.

The coincidences that carry the plot are arguably necessary, but require a bigger suspension of disbelief than some of the audience may be willing to provide. Almost every scene devolves into a foul-mouthed shouting match with implausible speed, and while most characters are well-rounded—their eccentricities and neuroses sketched out through a series of blackly comic exchanges—Faye's character is almost completely reduced to that of victim, lacking any uniqueness not linked to her trauma.

Ultimately, Misanthropy's problem is that the revelatory conclusions the characters reach about themselves have been figured out by the audience a good while earlier. And while the music of Nick Cave provides an excellent soundtrack, it also reminds us of how dark material can be addressed with much greater subtlety and effect.