Confirmation

Chris Thorpe and Chris Goode want to talk about change – or rather our apparent incapacity for change. In very different ways, their two solo shows pick at our inability—whether innate or ingrained—to consider any sort of alternative, despite the political and economic quagmire we find ourselves in.

Thorpe’s more on the nose about all this. In Confirmation (four stars), created with Rachel Chavkin of the TEAM, he looks at opposing, seemingly irreconcilable belief systems. As such, the fiercely liberal Thorpe sought out “a proud National Socialist,” Glen, to see if they could manage a dialogue across ideologies.

First though, Thorpe talks us through confirmation bias. Human beings, he explains, are predisposed to accept anything that confirms our existing beliefs and to dismiss anything that challenges them. Thus, over time, our opinions bed themselves in. We become entrenched, destined to disagree forever.

Knowing that, when Thorpe rattles off Glen’s ideas, of Jewish conspiracies and Muslim invasions, you notice your brain trying to scramble his words. You have to force yourself to listen, and really listen, to the argument beneath.

And just as Thorpe did, you’ll probably find some sense therein. Glen’s basic principles are fairly sound: egalitarian and anti-elitist. Thorpe’s start from the same place. It seems your conclusions could go either way.

That makes Confirmation feel seriously dangerous: a vital thought experiment in a safely sealed room. It lets you entertain the other, to take an alternative seriously. “The more I know of Glen,” says Thorpe, “the more I have to let him in.” And that means giving up your own certainties, questioning the benefits of immigration. Even, it seems, doubting the Holocaust.

The resultant show is fiercely potent. These words—all of which Thorpe spits at a microphone—are not just words. They don’t preach hate. They are hateful. They carry a phenomenal charge and they change the atmosphere of a room. It’s like Thorpe has written an electrical storm.

The question is how much you tolerate intolerance – and at a certain point, Thorpe has to back away and retreat to his trench. Better no change, than change for the worse.

Chris Goode diagnoses a different sort of stalemate in Men in the Cities (four stars): one based in empty, inert consensus. He argues that society excludes the very alternatives that might make real change possible.

Stood onstage, in front of a skyline of office fans, Goode starts his story with a dawn chorus of alarm clocks. Across the city, all these men wake up. A newsagent, Rehan; two lovers, Ben and Matthew; a pensioner, Jeff; Rufus, 10 today. And many more besides.

Goode follows them in fragments, snapping between their stories. They’re all individuals with their own routine, their own sense of humour, their own hang-ups, beliefs and memories. Each has their own damage too: Ben commits suicide, Jeff mourns his wife, Rufus watches gay porn non-stop.

What do they share? Humanity, certainly, and masculinity. Blood recurs in the writing. So does sex. But they also share two landscapes: the city with its phallic skyscrapers, and the mass media narrative. This is the day after Lee Rigby’s murder and all these men hear the same radio reports, see the same pictures and read the same headlines. As Goode reminds us early on, “You don’t get to choose the news.”

So who does? Politicians. Editors. Celebrities. Businessmen. Establishment men. Cameron’s verdict on Rigby’s killers—“Life should mean life”—echoes around the city. So do the adverts that try to sell us all the same thing. Moneymen make the world go round. Capitalists call the shots.

Goode’s real concern is with those who stand on the edges. Throughout, he equates queers with extremists – or, at least, blurs the two together. The city seems to preserve its own interests. It spits out difference and dissent. Society, says Goode, is stuck in a spin-cycle and it’s destined to repeat—no, to exacerbate—its mistakes.

Men In The Cities is much, much more layered than this. The fragmented form perfectly conveys an atomised society and Goode even writes himself in. It’s as if he’s focusing on the details, that can be pinned down, to find some wider truth. It’s an extraordinary text: honed, humorous and, right at the end, hopeful. As those fans finally kick in, the winds of change still seem possible after all.