Philip Ridley’s Tarantula at the Arcola Theatre: Blazingly Emotive And Beautifully Poetic Account Of Trauma From A Master Penman

Even the best streamed theatre can’t compete with the live version. It’s simple — with this art form you really have to be there. In person. Take the case of Tarantula, master storyteller Philip Ridley’s 90-minute monologue about the experience of trauma and its lasting effects. When this was first performed at the Southwark Playhouse in May 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a streamed event and, like everyone else, I watched it online. Now the show, with the same creative team, director Wiebke Green and actor Georgie Henley, has been restaged at the Arcola Theatre. The result is a total absorption into the experience of a teenage girl.

Toni is a bright and lively East Ender who reads a lot of Eng Lit, is top of her class, and hopes to go to Oxford. But she has had little experience of love. Or sex. Her home situation is rapidly sketched out, introducing her parents, especially Mum who works at an optician’s, and Toni’s siblings, her brother Maz, who’s two years her senior, and new baby Rochelle. Toni likes to please and when she volunteers to help with a school event for older residents, she meets Fern, the caterer, and her teenage son, Michael. After some realistically awkward chat, the two young ones go out on a date.

The first part of the monologue is a beautifully observed portrait of teen anxiety. When Toni says Michael’s name, she suddenly stops, pauses significantly for a very long time, then resumes. Then does it again. And again. This underlines the force of youthful attraction, its almost overpowering sensation. Acutely self-conscious, she constantly questions the things she says, sharing her tense uncertainties with the audience. While she’s walking with Michael, who is also pretty gawky, Toni sees herself as a “slug next to a gazelle”. Low self-esteem. But the two of them seem to be getting on okay so that’s alright. She dances her first kiss. We allow ourselves a parental sigh that everything will be fine.

Except that it isn’t. Not fine at all. When Toni and Michael go for a milkshake at McDonald’s, he gets the drinks while she looks around the crowded room. When she sees a young inner-city couple — the boy has a tarantula tattooed on his neck — she is disgusted by the way they snog, their mouths full of fries. Ugh. In one of two sharp narrative swerves of this superbly constructed story, these two take offence at the way she’s looked at them, which results in a shocking act of violence. Even though I’d seen this play before, this moment was equally sudden, equally electrifying, equally horrible. Then a quick light change puts her in hospital.

With a spotlight just on Toni’s face, she has to come to terms with her trauma. This middle part of the play is distressing and moving. When Maz tells her that her assailant, the tarantula boy, is the worst person to upset, a vicious psycho, the tone of the play becomes saturated by fear, as if a blood stain has spread across a bedspread. Toni begins to recover, but her mind is now cloudy with unease. Both her and her brother can’t tell their parents about what’s happening, so their isolation intensifies their sense of being constantly and totally afraid. She also suffers survivor’s guilt and PTSD.

Toni’s brain replays her experience of the attack, she has nightmares about seagulls pecking her to death. There’s a long sleep sequence in semi-darkness. She repeats, relives, her trauma with ever increasing intensity. The painful memories recur and recur and recur. Panic attacks follow; she attempts suicide. At one point she imitates the cry of a sparrowhawk, which turns into a bloodcurdling scream. Toni’s mind splinters into jagged pieces that tear at each other, pulping her thoughts and tormenting her everyday life. She is in a very bad place.

Then the narrative swerves once again, and sunlight bathes the stage. Toni tells us how her family has solved the problem of being persecuted by tarantula boy, and we see her again as her usual bubbly self. Except that she isn’t. Ridley perceptively shows how a person suffered from an acute trauma creates a kind of fake self, a shield against the pain, yet the pain is still there. The outward personality is like a protective shell, a way of deflecting and repressing terrible inner turmoil. As Toni blames herself for everything that has happened, he becomes increasingly manic in her brightness, in her sunny chatter.

Ridley’s text is a masterpiece of precision and impassioned storytelling as he pins down the rapid shifts in Toni’s feelings — and gives ample room for all the other characters that appear in her story, from her lovers and family to the older generation of senior cits. He carefully shifts our point of view, showing how trauma leads to a desire to repeat experiences, even if this leads to regrets, and how denial can result in telling lies about our lives. He also illustrates how events can change our personalities and our outlook and our ambitions. During the play Toni’s character changes. And the sheer confidence of the narrative means that its digressions effectively create tension and become as absorbing as the central tale.

Green’s riveting production, with Henley’s wonderfully crafted and utterly convincing performance, is a real treat. She confidently uses the bare space of designer Kit Hinchcliffe’s open stage in the Arcola’s studio, with Ciaran Cunningham’s excellent lighting enhancing the action. Before the play starts, there is birdsong, a lot of birdsong, whose trills and tweeting have a sharp edge that prepares us for the both the avian imagery and the sharp emotions to come. Henley’s acting has enormous empathy and nuance, giving the monologue a wonderful modulation, keeping us guessing about what will happened next. Her contrasts between subjective thoughts and everyday dialogue, between hyper over-activity and more relaxed humour, give depth to this portrait of mental distress, and the blazing moments of utter pain shine out from the often poetic text. At its best, the fury of her delivery chills the blood. Adrenaline high: hair-raising, compelling, but also strangely satisfying. And so alive when live.

• Tarantula is at the Arcola Theatre until 25 January.