Porphyria

The comic aspects of ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning tend to be overlooked for its more ostensible subject of a psychopath. This new play inspired by the Victorian poem brings them unsettlingly to the fore with a blackly humorous swipe at obsessive love. 

Nottingham University’s New Theatre company skillfully constructs a surreal dream-like atmosphere around the domestic life of Reginald Blake, a pompous family man who indulges in American Beauty-esque fantasies about his peachy au pair. Audience members standing in for domestic appliances, sinister elevator music and flickering blue lighting indicate all is not right in this household. 

Reginald constantly bickers with his lawyer wife, more often than not about pedantic issues of semantics: contentious Scrabble plays and whether "sexless whore" is an oxymoron. Words are the trouble in their marriage and create further strife when the sexily literate au pair teaches Reginald’s son the infamous Browning poem.

Words trouble the cast, too, who under-enunciate somewhat, so despite the intimate venue it’s easy to miss lines. This is unhelpful in a play that frequently skips across years and layers of reality. Like Browning’s work, Porphyria shifts tones and perspectives and leaves its audience in a moral quagmire. Indeed, those unfamiliar with the poem may be shaken by a twist that’s otherwise predictable. 

As with its source, Porphyria's prevailing theme is how the object of romantic obsession never seems quite real. Its doing the same to domestic charades is what makes this play distinct from ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and more distinctly ticklish.