The script’s a dud: Antipodes at the Dorfman Theatre reviewed

The Antipodes, by the acclaimed dramatist Annie Baker, is set in a Hollywood writers’ room. Seven hired scribblers are brainstorming a new animated feature under the direction of a mysterious, bearded multimillionaire, Sandy, who seems thoroughly bored with the movie-making process. The script is in its early stages and Sandy decrees that the central character must be a monster. That’s all. The writers can fill in the details. He asks them to indulge in a free-association experiment by describing their first sexual encounter or the scariest moment in their lives. Long speeches follow. Very long, some of them. Sandy loses interest in the project, not surprisingly, and starts to absent himself from the room.

The writers toil on, chatting and wittering. Every word they utter is typed out by an assistant in the hope that inspiration will strike. Days pass. Then weeks. The writers appear to be imprisoned with no means of escape. Eventually they consider the art of narration itself. How many fundamental story types exist? they ask. One claims there are seven types. Others suggest a higher total. Someone puts it at 36. Of course, anyone who has analysed the craft of narrative can answer this question. There is only one type of story. The quest. This holds true for every character in literature and scripture. It covers Moses, Jesus, Odysseus, Oedipus, Hamlet, Robinson Crusoe, Oliver Twist, James Bond and Dr Who. It also applies to the humble knock-knock joke, which is a quest to identify the person saying ‘knock-knock’.

However the playwright has dispensed entirely with this simple blueprint. None of her jabbering wordsmiths has a quest to fulfil. It’s true that each is beset by a humiliating eagerness to please the elusive Sandy. Apart from that, the characters have no clear purpose, and none of them develops a relationship with any of their colleagues as they fester in the creative void decreed by their boss.