Unspeakable Truths

“I've always considered theatre a rapid-response medium,” says Chris Goode, “where other art forms have an inevitable time-lag.” That said, creating his new solo show Men in the Cities has proven a much tougher and more lengthy process than usual. “I've had to let it dictate the pace at which it's willing to be written,” he explains. No wonder: blending fiction with real, violent events, and interweaving a cacophony of conflicting narratives and voices, Goode's latest piece of storytelling seems set to challenge audiences and artist alike. Billed as a “radically humane portrait of how we live now,” the show incorporates among its various strands a response to the death of Lee Rigby in Woolwich last year.

“Like many people,” says Goode, “I now spend a lot of time on Twitter – watching stories gain traction, commentaries emerge, and getting a sense of how a social climate is forming and changing in relation to particular events that unfold. Often these are complex and demand nuance, which Twitter is obviously less hospitable to, so I often want to move the conversation beyond the 140th character.” In Men in Cities, multiple viewpoints on “hot-button topics” interact to “speak to one bigger idea, which I suppose is about patriarchy and how exhausted capitalism feels.”

So why a solo show? “There's something very interesting about one person embodying contradictions,” Goode considers, “as well as, for me, being identified with ideas that I don't agree with. Although my work has often thrived on ambiguity of one kind or another, this is the first time that I've given myself a script where I have to say things that I find difficult to say.”

Goode has also written himself into the piece, “and my character has become a sort of mediating presence between the fiction and the reality.” This has an ethical dimension too: “I don't want to appear to be commenting on events from a distance, or to have clean hands. The very least you can do when writing in this way is acknowledge your own complicity, and the harm that you yourself do to other people, deliberately or otherwise.”

Not that it's entirely a one-man effort – Goode is directed by long time collaborator Wendy Hubbard. Hubbard is "very smart, with the most colossal amount of integrity. She won't let me get away with anything," he laughs.

"I have a tendency to have a slightly dishonest relationship with an audience, if I can get away with it," Goode explains. "I try to get them to warm to me, to like me and forgive me in advance for all the terrible things I'm about to say, simply because I feel vulnerable as a performer. Wendy's very good at keeping me honest, and truthful – she has no patience for that kind of sentiment that I'm capable of if I'm left to my own devices."