Review: The Urmetazoan (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs)

Review by Sam Woodward

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It is not often that a play premieres with a title that feels indecipherable, let alone impossible to pronounce. Perhaps urmetazoan is common parlance among science buffs, but for many audience members, myself included, the word will mean very little. That is, until Alex Rugman’s debut play, The Urmetazoan, explains the term and its wider scientific significance while digging into the fraught relationship between two sisters and the painful process of saying goodbye. For those interested, the urmetazoan is the hypothetical last common ancestor of all animals. With a stellar team, a mind-boggling title and an intriguing premise, the play explores biology at two scales: as a complex scientific discipline and through the shared ancestry of a family. Both prove fraught, beautiful and endlessly complicated.

It is no easy task to make a play about science feel relatable to human experience and intimate family relationships. Rugman’s strength lies in writing that operates at a planetary scale, grappling with cutting-edge scientific questions, while remaining rooted in a private family bond that proves just as complex. His writing makes the relationship between sisters Abigail and Alice incredibly familiar; their palpably complicated dynamic makes for a fascinating watch. Their closeness is brilliantly counterbalanced by their arguments, disagreements and even dislike of one another. In the intimate space of Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, it feels as though the audience are inside the Florida bungalow with the sisters, immediately within the action rather than watching from afar. It quickly becomes clear that Alice is not packing for an ordinary move. She is preparing to leave Earth forever on a one-way mission into deep space. Rugman combines sharp humour, poignant discussions, tense arguments and shattering revelations to create a frequently gripping watch.

Rugman’s writing is well matched by director Anna Ledwich, who has enjoyed a long and successful association with Hampstead Theatre since 2012. Ledwich layers these competing emotions with ease, balancing wit and distress with remarkable precision. Within the simple domestic setting, gradually packed away before Alice’s departure, the play makes use of the familiar: making a cup of coffee, eating dinner and completing a puzzle. Beneath these familiar routines bubbles a deeper tension, encompassing the love, loss and pain between the sisters alongside questions about how to prevent the end of the human race. Alice’s stillness, stoicism and scientific conviction are gradually carved open by Abigail’s somewhat childlike questions and hidden desperation to prevent her sister from leaving. Ledwich places these questions onstage with striking calm, making effective use of long pauses, sustained eye contact and moments of darkness.

Dorothea Myer-Bennett is exceptional as Alice. Her hard shell seems impenetrable, yet Myer-Bennett masterfully provides glimpses of the scared person beneath this brittle and emotionally suppressed exterior. She is fiercely passionate about her scientific convictions while remaining terrified of the mission that will take her away from everything she knows. A hilarious televised interview with Jimmy Fallon exposes, beneath her assured scientific persona, an almost painful longing to be liked and to fit in.The arrival of her ex-boyfriend Will reveals a softer side to her. Ben Allen brings an understated warmth to Will, although the character remains less fully developed than either sister. While Alice is not conventionally likeable, Myer-Bennett draws the audience towards her, particularly when she is alone onstage. Myer-Bennett is a beguiling powerhouse onstage.

Meghan Treadway is equally impressive as the younger sister Abigail. Far more chaotic and unfiltered than Alice, Treadway makes Abigail both fun and free, capturing the traits of a younger sibling long protected by an older sister who has always tried to prevent her from feeling any pain. Her freedom comes at a cost, and Treadway balances silliness and humour with a profound fear of losing Alice and genuine confusion and growing concern about the destruction that might await humanity. The contrast between the sisters is the play’s greatest strength, brought to life across a succession of beautifully observed household scenes.

The cast, writer and director are supported by a strong creative team, with Jonathan Chan’s lighting design leading the way. A seemingly ordinary ceiling light marks scene transitions, distinguishes times of day and alters the mood, while illumination from the back of the stage creates a visual connection to outer space, rocket launches and the intensity of the sun. Sarah Spencer’s sound design creates moments of tension and relief while propelling the story forward. Tomás Palmer’s set makes intelligent use of the small space, with the gradually emptied bungalow giving physical form to Alice’s approaching departure. Its rapid transformation during the final sequence is particularly accomplished. 

The play is weakened by repetition and several overextended scenes. At 105 minutes without an interval, it must work hard to sustain its tension and does not always succeed. The domestic routines initially make Alice and Abigail’s relationship feel lived-in, but several scenes continue after making their point and begin to blunt the momentum. More damagingly, a late-night encounter between Abigail and Will pulls an otherwise astute and refreshing play towards clichéd territory. Its consequences are also underexplored, and trimming some of the repetitive domestic material would have created space to develop this fallout and strengthen the conclusion considerably. A dreamlike sequence featuring Alice in her spacesuit is visually compelling, but arrives at an awkward moment and its purpose remains insufficiently clear. Even so, the final image again makes beautiful use of lighting and brings the play full circle by returning to the voiceover heard at the start. It is moving, although it does not deliver the devastation the play appears to seek. The repetition, the underdeveloped fallout from earlier revelations and the difficulty of fully warming to either sister keep the audience at a slight emotional distance.

Overall, Rugman’s debut play is sharp, compelling and thought-provoking, even if its ambition is occasionally constrained by repetition. His exploration of farewell is smartly wrapped within wider questions of morality, choice and blame. The one-way space mission draws these concerns together, revealing them to be intimately connected rather than galaxies apart. Audiences may leave with a clearer understanding of the urmetazoan, but also with deeper questions about humanity, its future and what it really means to say goodbye.

The Urmetazoan plays at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs until 24 October. Tickets from https://my.hampsteadtheatre.com/15993/16002 

Photos by Rich Lakos.