Nice Fish – Harold Pinter Theatre, London

I quite like when I come out of a play with a realisation that I need time to process it: what did it mean?  Did I like it?  Did I think it was any good?  Nice Fish is definitely one of those plays for me, and I would add to my list of questions in this instance: Did I only like it because Mark Rylance was in it/co-wrote it?

An interesting question, that last one.  I am neither particularly adventurous nor avant-garde in my theatre-going preferences, and agree with the consensus that Mark Rylance is one of the best, if not the best, stage actor currently performing.  I’ve never seen anything like his performance in Jerusalem for holding an audience spellbound.  On the other hand, though, I saw Farinelli and the King last year and was interested in the subject matter and staging rather than blown away.  Perhaps because I was seated in the galleries above the stage and so spent a good deal of time looking at the top of everyone’s heads.  In any event a play with Mark Rylance in it is enough of a draw for me to book tickets without knowing any more, thus exposing myself to a wider range of playwrights, plays, directors and productions than might otherwise be the case.  I wonder if Mark Rylance banks on theatre-goers like me when planning his next projects?  I bet he does – it allows for a degree of boundary-pushing not afforded everyone in the West End.  Would I have gone to see a different play based on the works of a prose poet and featuring some nice work with puppets?  Probably not.  Would some of the audience have gone to see it on these merits alone?  Yes probably, and I salute them for it.

Musing over, let’s get to the matter at hand.  Nice Fish.  It’s perhaps apt that it’s on at the Harold Pinter Theatre (having transferred from a debut in New York), given that it’s a play which doesn’t rely on a clear narrative plot and straightforward messages.  It’s based on the prose poems of Louis Jenkins, a Minnesota native, and is structured so that the poems become the utterances of two friends ice-fishing on a frozen lake.  Ron (Rylance) and Erik (Jim Lichtscheidl) converse, drink, soliloquize and attempt to catch elusive fish, occasionally joined by a Department of Natural Resources officer, a spear fisherman, and the latter’s granddaughter Flo.  It’s the latter, played by Kayli Carter, who was for me the weakest link in a strong cast: the contrast made me realise the extent to which Rylance and Lichtscheidl were able to turn the vocabulary and cadence of poetry into something more naturalistic.  Ron is chatty and a bit of a bore, Erik is more serious about fishing and about life, and the two complement each other nicely.

The play operates as a series of vignettes, with a set designed to evoke a wide expanse of frozen landscape.  Some very interesting work with puppets enhances this – characters move offstage and reappear as miniature versions of themselves, a clever way to sustain the illusion of the world of the play.  As time goes on, the events of the play nonetheless begin to break more and more with reality, in a process which also sees the fourth wall break down.  The meaning of this was unclear to me: is it a play about the reality of life, seen metaphorically through the comparison with the lives of characters in a play?  Is it telling us to get out and enjoy life?  Question reality?  Stop spending our evenings in theatres and get out into the real world?  Read more poems so plays like this become easier to adjust to?  I’m still not entirely sure, but, in the nature of a Harold Pinter play, decided not to worry too much and just to enjoy what was in front of me.

And perhaps this is really the point.  Mark Rylance is able to use his fame and growing reputation outside of theatre circles to bring less than mainstream projects to a wide audience.  He certainly seems to enjoy himself doing it.  Perhaps we should take the play at face value: enjoy the funny scenes and lines, enjoy the set and the clever direction, think briefly about whether, by coming to see the play we are making the most of life or should instead plan a weekend out of London, and then leave the theatre and get back to the business of living said life.

Tickets on sale through 11 February