Hi David – Alison here. We didn’t get to Apokalypsis, which was a huge regret in our Next Wave coverage. (We did our best…) It sounds like a big miss.

There was a fair bit of out-sourcing of middle-class racism to the working classes. I’m pretty sure it was meant to be read ironically, but not entirely sure: and a fair bit of the audience seemed to be going with the unironic reading!

Btw Rob, you missed the bit about how Patrick’s lack of sufficient manliness as a father figure is the fault of his screeching feminist career-driven emasculating wife….!

Quickly from Alison – all critique is subjective. Whether it’s substantial is arguable. However, I’m not quite sure what your objection is here? Theatre is allowed to (and does) reflect all sorts of heteronormative, patriarchal and middle class attitudes. Equally, it’s not superficial to take issue with such attitudes… In this case, Rob was talking about the ideas in the play: in particular, how the problem presented by the playwright is resolved: ie, according to Rob’s analysis, the boy was vulnerable to extremism because his father wasn’t manly enough in the ways that the working class father was. Which surely is pretty patriarchally heteronormative, as an objective observation rather than an opinion…? I saw the play myself on the weekend, and I’d only add to that analysis that the cause of the father’s lack of manliness is strongly suggested to be his emasculating, narcissistic (careerist and feminist wife), a notion that was certainly underwritten by the performances and direction here. I suspect the script itself might have introduced that idea as ironic, a sense that might have been flattened in the production.

Hi Sarah

Thanks for taking the time to write in response. Your thoughts really gave me a chance to think about what I’m writing here and a reason to make it explicit so, thank you again. I thought I might share some of it.

I don’t offer my critique as a final word on the matter. I offer it as part of the debate. If the play is the first part of a conversation, I offer my thoughts on what the experience of the play was like for me as a next part of the conversation (in concert with a number of other voices who also offer their responses as part of a broad critical response to the work) as a part of the debate. I might not have been particularly positive about the production or what it was saying, but I don’t think that makes the debate itself less positive. If it comes across as trying to dominate or shut down the discussion about the work, I’ll try and be clearer in how I’m offering my thoughts in future.

I’m curious about your concerns over my use of the phrase “classic patriarchal heteronormative form”. You seemed to read my use of it as dismissive when for me it was an attempt to descriptive. If you could help me understand how you’re interpreting it, I’d appreciate it.

Like wise, though I was critical of the middle class attitudes expressed in the play, I don’t feel I was dismissive of them. Of course patriarchy and heteronormative attitudes still exist and are free to be reflected on our stages. If they are offered without critique by a work and are just a reflection of it, then I’m inclined to offer my critique of that reflection, commentary and all. If that draws us into a larger debate about the content of the work and the world its’ reflecting, then great.

I’m not as convinced as Alison that Fury was meant ironically. If it was then, for me at least, the joke falls pretty flat. But that’s the fun part of this. How the work reveals the differences in how we see.

If you do get a chance to see it, I’d be interested in hearing what you think of it.

Rob