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"Playing Cards 1: Spades" at the Roundhouse
Published on 3rd September 2013
What do Las Vegas and Baghdad in 2003 have in common? Obnoxious Americans in deserts? That, and, according to Robert LePage’s first instalment of four plays based on suits of cards, much more. Invasion, intrusion and clash rule, both in the dizzying cultural gallimaufry that is Vegas and in Baghdad mid-shock and awe. Visually, the combination makes for rich pickings - LePage is surely one of the most technically innovative directors in the world, effortlessly conjuring vast sandstorms, multi-storey hotels and boundless casino floors within the Roundhouse’s wooden O. But visuals alone can’t fill the intellectual gap left by a somewhat heavy-handed anti-materialist message; the portraits painted are intensely engaging, but don’t hang together. Sure, the image of a stripper being paid to shoot a rape-victim Danish soldier who thinks he’s a mythical king is arresting, to say the least, but what does it mean? If it did mean anything, it certainly didn’t add anything to a sense of narrative, which was completely out the window by the first of the production’s two-and-a-half lengthy hours. The sheer theatrical calibre of individual scenes carries us through the first half, with several stand-out moments - a gambling addict delivers a mesmerising speech to a support group of empty chairs, spinning round the edge of the stage like a ball in a roulette wheel; a brutal assault on an Iraqi family turns out to be a Nevada training exercise as the “father” slopes off for a fag - but even these can’t replace narrative drive. As that pithy adage has it: reminding Robert LePage of Spades doth not a narrative linkage make. As a Quebecois string-theory mathematician (hip n’ happening, right?) puts it: “It’s all about linking the very large with the very small”. Exactly what this flashy production fails to do.
