The Comedy About a Bank Robbery

(The Criterion Theatre, 1 July 2017)

Shakespeare would set plays in exotic locations, which might as well not have existed. So exiled, events are less prone to being judged by the audience's parochial norms. Characters avoid being typecast by their location alone.

Today, dramatic settings tend to gravitate towards the US, which has an air of plausibility about it, in part, due to the news coverage, but mostly because of its cultural reach. For a theatregoer in London, the late-1950s Minneapolis, where the theatregoer has never visited, is likely to be more real than Birmingham, where the theatregoer might have even lived. The US history is recent enough for audiences to identify with and to see the analogies with and the repercussions for the present. Individualistic, the US is an auspicious setting for stories about individuals.

Besides, just like Facebook and science, art does not live by national boundaries. The London art scene is also the New York art scene. The leadership of the English-speaking world is unlikely to ever be challenged, not because this world is infallible, but because the entire world will have become English-speaking before any challenge can be mounted.

Much of contemporary entertainment is free or cheap, and easily goes viral. As a result, it is often designed to be sterile: politically correct and targeting the least common denominator. By charging its customers a hefty ticket fee in money and time, live theatre makes it harder for the audience to be inadvertently exposed to offence and makes it costly to admit that offence has been committed. (It is hard to admit one has paid to be offended. Instead, one has probably payed to be intellectually challenged.)

A Comedy About a Bank Robbery is a slapstick comedy designed in London, set in Canada and mostly in Minneapolis, and energised by the 1957 hit "Dynamite." The staging of action scenes is impressionist and free, instead of appearing constrained and impoverished by the limitations of live theatre.