Play Review- A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls at The Old Vic

4.5/5 stars

            Siobhan Dowd had already been given a terminal diagnosis when she created the plan for a novel that would become A Monster Calls. Though it was Patrick Ness—yet another prolific and sensitive children’s author—who ultimately wrote the book, Dowd’s influence can still be felt, both in the novel and now in the stage adaptation at The Old Vic theatre.

            In this play, Connor is a thirteen-year-old boy facing the worst that adolescence has to offer: a terminally ill mother, an absent father, and school bullies. As things grow more and more strained for the protagonist, he begins to be visited in the night by the monstrous incarnation of the yew tree outside his bedroom window. Yet this monster is perhaps not so monstrous, as he offers Connor guidance through his trials in the form of three stories. The fourth, we learn, Connor must tell for himself.

            Heart-wrenching, compassionate, and brutally honest, A Monster Calls will undoubtedly leave audiences in tears, but it will just as surely offer comfort and reassurance in the dark hours of grief. This is a story that pulls no punches, be it in its depictions of growing up or moving on. And yet that frankness is what it requires. It sings with a truth undiluted by platitudes.

            This production is plainly no less collaborative than the original story, drawing from the company’s workshopping as much as from Sally Cookson’s superb directing. Each actor onstage brings intensity and care to their performance, and thanks to Dan Canham’s movement design, the blocking and choreography give the impression more of one complex organism than eleven separate players.

            Michael Vale’s set bolsters this theme of interconnectedness. The ropes that shape the play’s central yew tree and its various incarnations are also quite literally the ties that bind these characters. And, though the decision to put the musicians in an elevated cubby is an odd one, the great expanse of flat white backdrop provides the perfect canvas on which to project both the young protagonist’s emotional state and the designs of Dick Straker. The whole effect is quite minimalist, offering a space for the exploration and soul-searching that come with both adolescence and grief.

            In the cast, it is difficult to say who does a better job, Stuart Goodwin as the monster or Matthew Tennyson as Connor. Goodwin brings a raw majesty to his role as the yew tree. He stands imposing enough on his own two feet, and his performance truly shines with the addition of stilts and aerial stunt work. His booming, digitally modulated voice becomes over the top at times, but there are moments of quiet and gentleness from the monster, and it is these moments where he is his most convincing. Tennyson, on the other hand, has managed to make himself smaller than he is. Though the actor is in his mid-twenties, he makes for a remarkably convincing thirteen-year-old, striking the perfect balance between teenaged bravado and childhood vulnerability. With breaking voice and tear-streaked face, he makes the audience ache for him every step of the way.

            All in all, A Monster Calls offers a meaningful two hours of catharsis, with a twenty-minute intermission in the middle to wipe one’s eyes a bit in the WC. It finds a sense of equilibrium between modern, experimental art theatre and classic storytelling, allowing the audience to suspend their disbelief and enter the world of this boy and the monster who guides him.

-Christy Duprey