Review: Autobahn, Alma Tavern Theatre

Frustration lies at the heart of Autobahn.

This is by no means a fault of the play, but rather its intention. Purposefully clumsy exchanges, unresolved conflicts, ambiguous double-meanings and outright confusion are the bread and butter of Neil LaBute’s 2003 play, and The Scullions Neoterics’ adaptation works hard to bring these aspects to the fore.

The play – or, to give it the author’s preferred term, ‘short-play cycle’ – consists of seven unrelated single-act plays, all of which take place in the front seat of a car. The Scullions’ adaptation diverges from the original here. Rather than moving through each conversation individually, they move between scenes at random, allowing each conversation to play out gradually as a complex web of dialogue is slowly and deliberately formed.

Perhaps even more striking than this is the production’s use of language and space. In the original 2004 production, all seven vignettes were enacted by pairs of actors on stage and were exclusively delivered in dialogue form. In the Scullions’ production, only half of the exchanges are depicted with on-stage dialogue. The others take place amongst the audience, with single actors each performing one half of their respective conversations.

The Scullions Neoterics

These meta-theatrical moments are probably the plays’ strongest feature. The initially covert actors don’t deliver their lines as monologues, but rather as one-sided conversations delivered to their neighbours in the audience. I was lucky enough to sit next to one such actor, whose growing frustration at my lack of response made me question whether or not I might have forgotten my lines.

Autobahn thrives on this uncertainty. It positively breeds these sorts of questions in both audience and character, never allowing sureness to prevail for too long. Every time you feel as though you’re closer to grasping the true meaning behind an exchange, something complicates matters, placing you squarely back where you began – struggling to understand what’s really going on.

To take an example, one of the onstage exchanges between a young married couple begins with an ambiguous yet heated argument about whether it makes sense to refer to two men as ‘all of them.’ Wordplay and purposeful miscommunication initially give these vignettes a charming, Seinfeldian humour.

But, as the play progresses, the exchanges become darker and more sinister as piece by piece, the context of their conversation is revealed. The audience is forced to reconsider what they thought they knew about the couple’s earlier exchanges, and made to doubt the true meaning of their bickering dialogue.

The struggle for meaning – to communicate, and to understand – is perhaps the one aspect which most strongly links all six scenes. Some characters get caught up on particular words, obsessively evaluating semantics and particulars, allowing the purpose of their speech to drift aimlessly in the process. Shyness and uncertainty cause others to obscure and sugar-coat their points, forcing them to requalify their statements again and again until the audience is entirely incapable of discerning fact from fiction.

One character in particular, whose partner is trying tactfully to end their relationship, is simultaneously paranoid about and entirely naïve of the other’s intention; rather than listening to his partner, he rants and raves about his own insecurities, berating him one moment, and asking him to ‘make out’ the next.

This grinding, frustrating approach to dialogue will likely wear thin on some viewers. At the end of the first act, I found myself beginning to cross over from intrigued frustration to all-out annoyance. But, after an impeccably timed intermission, the second act’s slightly increased pace left me captivated by the play’s conclusion. This was, no doubt, thanks to the quality of the performances. The acting, on full display owing to the production’s minimal staging, was strong enough to carry the narrative (or lack thereof) forward through this slight slump, and on to a climactic and fervent ending.

While Autobahn doesn’t leave the audience with many answers, it offers enough questions to keep the more inquisitive among us intrigued for quite some time. The recurring image of the car seems relevant here. We never reach our destination – the audience, like the cast, is simply along for the ride.

Autobahn continues at the Alma Tavern Theatre until Saturday, March 17. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.almatavernandtheatre.co.uk/theatre/what-s-on

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