A fractured take on a fractured world

Simons Stephens ranks as one of Britain’s most prolific playwrights, which makes it no surprise that, fresh off the run of _Birdland_at the Royal Court last summer, he’s already back in the theatre with Carmen Disruption, a musing on life, love and loss in an unnamed European city.

As the title suggests, _Carmen Disruption _follows (somewhat loosely, truth be told) the structure of Bizet’s opera, using the characters and themes of that work to examine the life of an opera singer, travelling from country to country, always playing the same role – always playing Carmen.

The Singer in question is played wonderfully by Sharon Small, who captures the confusion and loss of identity that sits at the heart of the character. When you spend every day of your life playing at being someone else – and playing at being one, specific person at that – how do you continue to draw the boundary between their life and yours?

"The Singer is alien to us, so distant that it makes it impossible to truly empathise with her"

The Singer is in a situation far removed from ordinary people’s lives – even from ordinary actor’s lives, in fact. Very few people live the way opera singers do, with many singers simply playing the same role across multiple different productions. Stephens acknowledges this fact as the inspiration for the entire play, with the work spiralling out of an interview with RinatShaham, an internationally-famous mezzo-soprano who has played Carmen more than 400 times. That unique situation should mean that The Singer is alien to us, so distant that it makes it impossible to truly empathise with her, but therein lies the genius of Stephens’ script and Small’s performance. The Singer’s weariness, her confusion, all of it, all blends to give something achingly human, speaking to a truth that exists in a world beyond opera.

The other characters allow Stephens to examine different facets of this underlying loneliness, as he manipulates the original character archetypes into something new and exciting. Carmen becomes a young, handsome male prostitute (with a strong sense of his own looks), played with hilarious bravado by Jack Farthing. Don Jose, Carmen’s love interest in the original, now becomes a female taxi driver (NomaDumezweni), forced to do one last, suspiciously criminal job before meeting her long-lost child. The bullfighter Escamillo is now a high-flying banker-type, played by John Light, with a self-serving criminal bent. He is the last to be introduced, although he’s rapidly the most engaging as his attempts at financial gain rapidly threaten to backfire and crush him.

The ‘nice girl’ Micaela is a student (at what can only be presumed to be a university – the city, and by extension wherever she is studying – goes unnamed throughout) fresh out of a relationship with her sixty three-year-old professor. This particular situation is referenced from the start, but only becomes clear about two-thirds of the way into the play, at which point it provoked an audible gasp from the audience I was in.

This steady unwinding, with the occasional floor-shaking revelation, is the case for all of the characters, as each are given their own moment to shine. Carmen’s mistreatment at the hands of a client, and his immediate revenge is a weird mixture of comedy and disgust. There’s an unflinching honesty in it that means you can’t look away, as the world Stephens has built draws you in, inexorably.

The play’s composition is part of this allure – none of the characters directly interact with each other at any point. They cross paths in-world – each is referenced in the other’s stories, but the closest to a direct interaction is the moment the Singer realises that each of them represents a character from the opera. The whole thing is essentially a series of overlapping monologues, intertwined with bursts of song from the mezzo-soprano ViktoriaVizin as the Chorus, accompanied by two cellists who sit on the side of the stage, in full view of the audience. Almost all of the music is played by the duo live, with styles ranging from the classical (including, obviously, snatches of Carmen itself) to abrasively modern. It’s a bold choice, and one that reaps rewards. The combination of the cellists and Vizin’s soaring voice raises goosebumps, searing itself into your memory instantly.

"The set is a literal deconstruction of the environment, of both Carmen and the unnamed city."

And all of that is before you get to the set. The live music may have been a bold move, but the set is an even bolder one – a literal deconstruction of the environment, of both Carmen and the unnamed city. A bull, presumably the one killed in Carmen’s climax, is sprawled centre-stage. All around it, rubble.Bricks, scattered across the space. The rear wall and wings of the theatre are fully exposed, with the mechanisms of theatre – the lights, the speakers, the cables that run between them, all on fully display. It’s a stark image, unlike almost any other on London stages. It goes beyond a kind of minimalism, moving from an emptiness to a physically crumbling theatre. At one point, rubble even falls from the ceiling. This, combined with the music and the performances, which display intense emotion mixed with a disconnected distance – from each other, and from the world at large – is what makes _Carmen Disruption _a truly memorable experience. The imagery of the show is burnt onto your retinas, the music lingers in your ears, and _Carmen _is truly reborn.

Carmen Disruption is at the Almeida Theatre until 23rd May.