“Hope is different from having that hope satisfied.” Says Reece (Ian Toner), one of the survivors in Simon Stephens’ latest play A Slow Fire that explores the meaning of hope, male friendship and masculinity in the aftermath of an imagined apocalypse.
Reece and Ashton (Ross Gaynor) have been living in a locked bunker for over three years. As a former college professor, Ashton’s hope lies in making maps of the city that he firmly believes he will give to someone who eventually comes, while he is incapable of living without Reece, for whom hope simply means eating ice cream by the coast.
Reece and Ashton’s daily life passes through the retelling of their pasts, stories that interestingly, barely represent hope at all. Many of their mini plays within the plays (“uplifting moments”, as Ashton describes them) reveal them as men who have failed as boyfriend, husband or father. Under Rex Ryan’s smooth and fast paced direction, these moments are acted out almost like acting workshops that force the participants to expose the most fragile parts of themselves.
And then comes Presley (Fionn Ó Loingsigh). He breaks in with a generator, a gun and some fresh pork. The duo shares their living space and he shares the pork. He joins their mini plays. He does something Ashton cannot forgive. He is about to leave. Then comes a final scene that is predictable from the very moment to which the play has been quietly building from the very beginning.
Returning to his recurring preoccupation, A Slow Fire is very much a play about masculinity and its reconstruction without toxicity, brought to life by the brilliant performance of a trio who give these three men much substance. Gaynor’s Ashton exhibits traits of traditional masculinity: the leader and father type whose authority is actually established through the sacrifice of others. In that sense, Reece is very much his wife. Through his mini-play about David, his childhood best friend and presumably first lover, we have a glimpse of his inner insecurity.
Toner’s Reece represents a newer kind of man, less conventionally masculine, which is nowadays often associated with bearing less responsibility. Toner imbues this character with complexities that fuse with anxiety, hope and childishness, a perfect man-boy. Loingsigh’s Presley is clearly that kind of toxic man, exaggerating, boastful and swaggering, but in nature utterly selfish and indifferent. In peaceful times he could have been a womaniser, but in an apocalyptic world, men too can fall victim to him.
Reece and Ashton hold each other tightly at the end of the play. Maybe the faint flicker of hope lies in male connection, in their friendship? Stephens leaves the answer vague. Together with Andrew Clancy’s design and Jess Fitzsimons Kane’s lighting, the play is a richly atmospheric thriller, but I found myself wishing that its exploration of hope were a little more profound and thought provoking.
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