Seeing Fairview at the Young Vic in London in December 2019 was electric. The play had arrived in the UK from New York with a Pulitzer prize for drama attached – and an extraordinary word-of-mouth reputation. “Let me give you fair warning on Fairview, Jackie Sibblies Drury’s dazzling and ruthless new play,” wrote the critic Ben Brantley in the New York Times. “If you see it – and you must – you will not be comfortable.”
But there was also a mystery. No one knew exactly what made this play – which Brantley went on to describe as a “sustained act of sabotage” – quite so special and discomfiting. The reviews were deliberately vague about how it delivered its blistering effects. They warned that as soon as you revealed its twists and turns, its shock value diminished. So on that night, it was a sensational surprise.
