A Thought-Provoking Turn From Jesse Eisenberg

My last visit to Trafalgar Square Studios entailed the fantastically gruelling three-hour Greek tragedy Oresteia, an impressive tour de force featuring copious amounts of blood and viscera. While it doesn’t exactly drown in fake blood nor bear the lofty weight of the Greek theatre tradition, Jesse Eisenberg’s London transfer of The Spoils features a modern anti-hero at odds with his surroundings and himself, caught between the fickle and merciless Gods of narcissism, apathy and societal expectation. In taking on the task of writer and lead actor, he further explores the archetypal character he’s already fine-tuned in his other film roles, namely the self-confident-to-the-point-of-arrogant young upstart that still manages to hold on to a single, hair-thin thread of likeability. In the case of The Spoils, Eisenberg pulls off pomposity with aplomb. As for evoking even the smallest amount of sympathy, I’m still trying to figure out if I even liked his character at all by the play’s denouement...

Set in a Manhattan Apartment someone my age could only ever dream of currently having, the story follows Ben, an art school dropout who sows the seeds of his self-righteous misery wherever he roams. Ben’s world revolves around marijuana, ripping the establishment and all those who dwell within it to shreds with a razor-sharp tongue, and a movie project that is destined never to see the light of day due to his own stasis. Providing the perfect foil to his antagonistic nature is Kalyan, his sweet-natured and foolishly optimistic (compared with Ben’s pessimism in any case) Nepalese roommate played by the Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar with a commendable tenderness and subtlety.

While Kunal may seem oblivious to Ben’s acerbic antics, his level-headed girlfriend Reshma isn’t. She isn’t immune to his cynicism and her increasingly vocal criticism of the mean-spirited misanthrope comes to mirror my own thoughts. After a chance meeting reignites an old yet immature flame, Ben sets out to capture the heart of his childhood crush, with no regard to said crush’s own feelings and her recently engaged status.

As Ben spirals towards his own deluded end, Eisenberg weaves black humour amongst well crafted and realistic portrayals of relationships that bloom rapidly on stage thanks to the quick repartee that he no doubt relished writing, imbuing the script with a sense of rhythm and timing that smacks of Mamet. The actor dons a Woody Allen-esque guise of rapid stream-of-consciousness style lines and nervous titters/ticks that are on one hand impressive considering the sheer bulk of the dialogue under his command. On the other, the affectations start to wear thin when it becomes clear that although it’s whip-smart, his writing fails to land the emotional punches it should.

Eisenberg gets the balance of humour and realism right most of the time; I felt as if I was a fly on the wall of the apartment I so desperately wished I owned and certainly laughed out loud a good few times. But the play’s resolution left me somewhat perplexed and unsatisfied, as if its writer bit off more than he could chew and cut corners at the most pivotal section of his work. The once cruel Ben is portrayed as tragic and pathetic, and rightly so, but glimmers of redemption seem too easily tacked on to the story. I don’t pity the wretched shmuck even though it’s heavily implied that I should. Nevertheless, I am intrigued to see where Eisenberg takes his aspirations as a playwright. Perhaps his work will mature over time and achieve the gravitas that was not quite within its grasp in The Spoils.

Reviewed by Teia Fregona

Wednesday 1st June 2016
Trafalgar Studios, London
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View our show pages for more information about The Spoils, Trafalgar Studios 1.