At the Duke of York’s Theatre, London. Written by Laura Wade. Directed by Lyndsey Turner. Designed by Anthony Ward.
Devastating. It is upsetting, unsettling, muscular, hilarious, forbidding and so angry and frightening a subject it’s hard to believe a woman wrote it and a woman directed it.
POSH is about a group of aristocratic young men probably at Oxford or Cambridge who belong to the Riot Club. that name says everything. They meet once per term in a private room in a hotel etc. to have a grand dinner, much drinking of fine wines and games of humiliation and initiation.
They are rowdy and usually trash the room for which they pay for all the damages and expect the ‘landlord’ to look the other way and not say a word. Just accept the money to clean up and repair the place. There was a spot of trouble in the recent past and the group got noticed in the newspapers, which is not on in upper circles. A high ranking politician, the godfather of one of them, told his godson to cool it and tone it down. The politician had been a member of the group as well and knew and accepted that such behavior was the norm, but one did have to be careful.
While it looks like a play only for the British I think any society that has an upper class of spoiled brats who have a choking sense of entitlement, little regard for anyone not of their station, and totally without character or responsibility except where money is concerned, will recognize the characters in it.
I spent Act I fearful that someone would be raped or hurt. Act II was brutal and frightening. It left me shaking long after I got back to my hotel. Fantasting play and production. Chilling.