Nothing

The audience of Nothing could be forgiven for thinking they have wandered in on a meeting of Nihilists Anonymous. Existential angst seeps through the play like the smell of unwashed socks in student halls. Unsurprisingly it began life at a university and earlier this year won four awards in the National Student Drama festival.

A man steals simply because he can; a woman slakes her anger by defecating on doorsteps; another sees a leg which has just been hacked off at the thigh, yet feels – nothing. Constructed out of eight monologues which explore the anomie of the young and middle-class, Nothing contains no conversation, just intercutting and overlapping lines. This, then, is disconnection – in form as much as in theme.

Extraordinarily the parts are not fixed. It is mere chance as to which actor performs which monologue, and a matter of improvisation how and when they speak. This gives Lulu Raczka's writing, already vivid, extra immediacy. It is credit to the quality of acting that the commitment to character is never compromised.

The problem with a play about nothingness is that it can provide a narrative excuse for lazy drama. No plot, no cohesion, no engagement with the world – fine, that's the point, it all adds to the Camus-like disaffection. Don't care about the characters? That's ok, it's a play about alienation. Except it's not ok. The almost epidemic levels of mental illness, depression, and anxiety disorders among today's young deserves a response that forces people to care.