As with every other play about the experiences within the acting trade, In Your Dreams comes with a reference to RADA, a few mentions of Peter Brook, and suffers from a fetishisation of Shakespeare without a particularly outstanding grasp of him. This is despairingly predictable and it’s saddening to see how quickly Shakespeare can become a cliché.It is a boring irony that the reference to Peter Brook provides more of an insight on this play than its writer could have known. This is Deadly Theatre: it’s theatre for all the wrong reasons. This dilettante paints a misguided image of theatre and lacks a human honesty that tries to reach out to the audience.The emotions precede the words of the script, rather than the emotions giving rise to the words. You can see, in the actors’ countenance, the posture and expression of their character being calculated; they present a veneer, but they do not have a compelling grasp of the person they are playing. This is why the actors aren’t exactly spontaneous in taking their cues.The denouement of the play comes as the result of a bluntly-contrived coincidence – a previous character, having recently travelled to India, obtained a Truth Serum (as you do) which he then added to the actors’ tea so that they might all expose their respective affairs. This coincidence, in fact, is the fulcrum on which the entire play pivots and without it there would be a very flat plot. The use of coincidence here is lazy and uninspired, but the use of such a crass coincidence is quite the insult to the audienceThis is a cast, and writer – judging by the subject they have chosen to base a play on – that clearly have a great interest and enthusiasm for the theatre and the acting profession, and for this one really does look for something good in the play. The audience laughs at the occasional joke, but unfortunately, beyond an enthusiastic cast, there’s little to be found - this play is irreparable.
