Silence review, Hampstead Theatre.

Silence is golden.

Silence is a soundscape brought to life over two extraordinary hours during which the dissonance of the everyday runs parallel with discordances built across time between lovers, fighters and the fearful. What we learn, is there is no such thing as silence.  Through sound recordist, Michael (Jonjo O'Neill), we are reminded that ambient noise permeates every waking moment be it voices in the street, a leaking faucet in the flat next door or the sharp intake of breath from an elderly policeman turned sour by his secrets.  Silence, then, is not the absence of noise, but the absence of knowledge. To underscore that point, part of the action takes place in Russia before and after the collapse of communism: today's corruption requiring the same codes of silence as the state control of old.  In London, the dark side is mirrored by the hiding of police misdeeds.  Complicated?  Yes, a bit, and the title doesn't help, but when you get it, it stays: silence is within us, in the secrets that ultimately consume us. Silence is what is unsaid.

Devised by the RSC's David Farr with Filter Theatre Company, what we see again and again in Silence is disquietude; the pitting of human ambition against human frailty, hidden longing against hidden fears.  Katy Stephens as the wife who still yearns for her Russian sweetheart, evokes an irritating Donald Sinden-esque luvviness with every turn of her head, but she also has a physical translucence that is mesmerising. Jonjo O'Neill, whose Mercutio in last year's Romeo and Juliet at The Roundhouse is forever etched in my brain, is compelling precisely because you barely see him.  Dark and hooded he merges into the stark set, a wallflower irrigated by sound, and it is through the resonances of others that he ultimately reveals himself, using his recording skills as a weapon to bring down his journalist colleague, Oliver Dimsdale.  The Russian crew, led by Ferdy Roberts, are tough and convincing and you can believe at one point that you're in the heart of a Ukranian forest.

Conclusion: A thought-provoking production.  Worth seeing to study the way sound and lighting create narratives around the actors as well as to luxuriate in 100 minutes of compelling drama that sends you reeling, loudly, into the night.

References:
Filter Theatre Company, biogs
Hampstead Theatre
Charles Spencer in The Daily Telegraph


Hampstead Theatre is on Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 3EU. This production is now closed.