What do you do when a pandemic breaks out and people start dying? In An Instinct, the answer is to escape to a remote cabin in the woods with your ex-boyfriend, leaving your current boyfriend behind. This is the premise behind Hugo Timbrell’s An Instinct, billed as a queer thriller that delivers a few shocks along the way. Yet, the real tension lies in the disturbing dynamics between the three characters—the mind games, gaslighting, and unhealthy dependencies. While the play is cleverly constructed, its underlying themes of domestic violence may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It's currently running at the
Old Red Lion Theatre.
The play opens with Max (Conor Dumbrell) and Tom (Joe Walsham) arriving at Tom’s parents’ cabin in a remote part of England. A pandemic broke out, but not the kind where you have to pretend to practice social distancing or hand out government contracts to your mates for dodgy hospital gowns and face masks. This one is highly contagious and very deadly. But strangely, Tom has left his parents in the city, and Max has left his current boyfriend, Charlie (Ben Norris), to fend for themselves.
Why they did this is part of what the play explores. Max seems to have sought solace from Tom, his partner, as Charlie grew increasingly paranoid and controlling. Yet alone in the woods, with no phone signal and not much to do, Charlie finds himself controlled by Tom. Forbidden from going out, and only allowed to cook and clean. As the pandemic drags on, the tedium gives way to fear and paranoia. Particularly when the axe used to chop wood disappears, and Max’s boyfriend Charlie arrives at the cabin, telling Max he’s in danger.
As an exploration of possession and power plays, the piece is strong. It seems the central argument concerns the impact of trauma and crisis on power and relationships. The piece is billed as a queer thriller. But if the performers weren’t three males, there isn’t much else to suggest anything queer (or even just a bit gay). Tom even talks about starting a family. It felt hard to understand how Tom and Max, and Max and Charlie, ever got together in the first place. Maybe their expressions of love are meant to feel empty. I began to wonder during this piece whether sexual orientation mattered and what it would be like if the characters were any gender.
Directed by Lucy Foster, An Instinct is at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 6 December.
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Photos by Craig Fuller
