Always look on the dark side of life

Hampstead’s boss Ed Hall was so impressed by Stephen Karam’s play The Humans that he wanted to direct it himself. Instead, thanks to a stunning series of accidents, he was able to bring the original Tony award-winning production from Broadway to London. And here it is, directed by Joe Mantello.

It’s a family drama, which opens with Dad and Mom, in their sixties, arriving for Thanksgiving at a dingy New York apartment occupied by their daughter Brigid and her fiancé Richard. All the characters are heavily scarred by life. Richard, aged 38, hasn’t yet completed his sociology degree because he suffers from severe depression (possibly triggered by his subject choice, although the writer isn’t cynical enough to make such a cheap crack). Brigid is a dole cheat who moonlights as a waitress and harbours an impossible dream of becoming an orchestral composer. Her sister Aimee is a jilted lesbian with Crohn’s disease whose sick-leave absences are about to terminate her career. Dad has cashflow problems after a botched property deal. And Mom is a podgy drudge who gives round-the-clock care to ‘Momo’, a granny-on-wheels with Alzheimer’s, whose susceptibility to hysterical fits provides an element of unpredictable combustibility. What redeems these losers is the deep bond of love between them.

The play is fun to watch as they jabber away, affectionately mocking each other’s shortcomings. Best moment: Dad takes a pop at mopey Brigid for eating superfoods. ‘If you’re so depressed why do you want to live longer?’ But the play’s negativity and pessimism seem contrived. Has nobody told these self-pitying duffers that simply living in Manhattan is a stroke of colossal good fortune? The play’s portentous title suggests that the writer has an important message that we earthlings should heed with gratitude and humility.