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The lights go off and all that adorns the stage is a double bed with crisp white sheets; it is then removed and we are introduced to the first scene of the play, Closer. This stark image, combined with the play's title, gives the audience an inkling of what it is in for. With themes of lust, love, betrayal, and a question about intimacy at its core, Marber's play, written in 1997, goes right to the heart of our work as couple therapists. So I was looking forward to this recent revival at the Donmar warehouse.
When Closer hit the British scene in the 1990s it was a smash hit, sweeping all the awards, and went from the National, to the West-end, to Broadway, and finally, in 2005, to Hollywood starring Julia Roberts and Jude Law. This was a particular era when young British playwrights were disturbing audiences and critics alike, using crude language and shocking imagery, such as Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking and Sarah Kane's Blasted, where dead babies and eye-gouging were the subject matter. The internet and on-line dating were only just beginning to take hold; Marber certainly had some foresight—Closer was the first to introduce internet chatroom sex on stage. Indeed, Marber says Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies and Videotape was his inspiration.
The plot centres on the coupling and de-coupling of four characters who all seem to be searching for “that thing called love”, but are constantly frustrated by their propensity for disillusion with the so-called truth. It is a kind of modern day Private Lives or Les Liaisons Dangereuses, where lust is misconstrued as love and infidelity reigns. Little girl stripper, Alice, and garrulous obituary writer cum would-be novelist Dan, shack up after their initial meeting at Accident and Emergency where her wounds are treated by an arrogant, but fragile, dermatologist, Larry. Fast forward a year, and Dan has written his first novel, and falls for his publicity photographer, Anna who, as it happens, lives with Larry. Dan betrays