LOBBY HERO: Lonergan, Donmar till 4 May

LOBBY HERO: Kenneth Lonergan
Donmar Warehouse: Tkts 020 7369 1732
Runs: 2h 30m, one interval, till 4 May
Review: Vera Lustig, 13 April 2002

The excellent David Tennant shines in an uneven production. Some over-emphatic, staccato acting makes the writing seem schematic, but it's a thoughtful, shrewdly observed, gripping play.
America: Land of Opportunity. Achieve the American Dream, and you'll need security guards. For those guards, though, the dream is unattainable, the goal merely to survive, preferably with integrity and self-esteem intact.

LOBBY HERO places a guard in a Manhattan apartment building centre-stage in a neatly structured drama about the whistle-blower's dilemma. Jeff is a drifter hankering after stability. He realises that his despotic 'captain', William has furnished his brother with a false alibi after a raid on a hospital dispensary has left a nurse dead.

Meanwhile, rookie cop Dawn (Charlotte Randle) is reluctantly covering for her partner, Bill, who spends part of his shift in bed with an occupant of Jeff's building. Bill is also, metaphorically, in bed with William, putting in a good word for his brother. Dawn longs to expose Bill, but it's her word against her superior's, and Bill's keeping mum about her over-zealous restraint of a suspect. And then . . . over-egging the narrative pudding, Lonergan throws in some sexual harassment.

Lonergan is superb on the petty rank-pulling and edgy camaraderie of the workplace, magnified for workers with time on their hands. David Tennant's hunched, lanky Jeff oscillates between restlessness and inertia, painfully aware of his unfulfilled potential, but unsure where it lies. Dominic Rowan, as the amoral Bill, has a chillingly blank handsomeness.

Robert Jones's gleaming set is spot-on, down to the regimented greenery in white tubs. It's a space that should dwarf the guards, servilely penned in behind their desk. But, implausibly, these are free-range guards, who literally do not know their place: they potter around the vestibule, over-projecting.

This lends the production a boulevard feel, heightened by Randle's knowing, wistful kookiness. It detracts from the play's darkness: and the upbeat ending jars. For, like AN INSPECTOR CALLS, this play is haunted by a young woman whose death involves everyone. The unseen nurse in LOBBY HERO was afforded no protection – but a security guard and a cop conspire to protect someone implicated in her rape and murder.

Cast:
Jeff: David Tennant
William: Gary McDonald
Bill: Dominic Rowan
Dawn: Charlotte Randle

Director: Mark Brokaw
Design: Robert Jones
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Fergus O'Hara for Aura

2002-04-22 22:19:25