The Events

102793 original

There's not one, but two troubling hearts pulsing at the centre of David Greig's new play, an exploration of the aftermath of an (unnamed) atrocity in which a gunman rips through a community choir. The first is the question of evil, which stalks the script and shapes the responses. The second is empathy – particularly for the killer, a softly spoken young man who talks endearingly of moments of self awareness where, even in the act of killing, he realises "this is really, really silly". But where one stops beating and the other starts is anyone's guess in a piece which constantly dangles the bait of easy, comforting sentimentality, but hands it over only at the end – comfortless after an act of empty retribution.

Broadly, The Events charts the struggles of minister/choir leader as she attemts to find meaning in an act which decimated her liberal idyll. Her opposite number plays everyone else—the killer, her partner, the father, the politician—trapping her in a tangle of connections which play out in the widest theatrical brushtrokes, sometimes poignant, sometimes farcical. Meanwhile, a live choir threatens permanently to reclaim the drama for song, forcing words and sentiment to appear refreshed and anew – and not always flatteringly so. "I wake up every day, it's a daydream," they lament, lending a plaintive newness to Dizzee Rascal's modern malaise.

Elsewhere, the killer's own words, pored over for meaning and psychological insight, are transformed into a trite showtune. The effect is disconcerting and intriguing. Grieg gives us the puzzle pieces of empathy and morality and then, brilliantly, refuses to let them click.