Stranger Things Called, they want their ’80s Gimmick Back

3 stars

Three thieves all with different motivations try to break into a gallery to steal a famous painting. As they work their way through the gallery, they unknowingly affect each other’s progress before finally meeting. Of course only one of them can actually end up with the painting...

The play begins strongly. A penny dropped from a rooftop to judge a drop hits another thief’s head who flips it to make a decision. The coin drops down a gutter and is found by the third thief crawling through the sewers. This is an exceptional sequence, and probably the best moment in the play. So why did the play as a whole feel so dull?

Art Heist often feels like a victim of its success. With a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe and performances at various festivals during the summer, it could have been a stand out amongst the innumerous post-Fringe plays coming down to London to capitalise on their 5-star reviews. (The thinking goes that no Londoner wants to see experimental theatre, but whack an EdFringe Review sticker on the programme and Bob’s your uncle.)

The problem is one of hubris. The cast and writers, utterly convinced of their own hilarity and with a month’s worth of in-jokes, start cutting up the script, chopping and adding till the original narrative can only peek out from between the newly added nonsense.

What was intended to be a challenging comedy that forces the audience to look inside themselves by exploring themes like art, capitalism, friendship, and reality became a cross between a summer comedy starring Simon Pegg and a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The solid jokes are buried between fatuous add-ons like “maybe what the play is really about is labels” or “art, when you really get down to it, is just lines on a canvas”.

There are clever moments and some genuinely innovative dramatography; all action is directed by and setting is provided from a desk next to the stage by someone doing the sound effects and occasionally acting as the gallery guard. What the guard says defines what is happening on stage. Characters ask what they can see and are told where to go. Although a clever technique, the play repeatedly breaks its own rules, frustrating and confusing the audience. Maybe the whole play is a game the guard is playing? Or a dream? Nobody knows!

In the end everyone starts being nice to each other. It isn’t a good ending.

This is the sort of play you should watch. It is challenging and fresh with incredible staging. It just doesn’t always make sense, nor does the end feel too soon.