There is a theory that in the course of human prehistory, hunter-gatherers sang before they spoke. The idea crops up in this bitter-sweet monologue by playwright Simon Stephens and singer-songwriter Mark Eitzel as a way to explain the emotional gulf between two brothers. The bereaved Willem is materialistic where his late sibling Pauli was artistic. Where Willem plays a numbers game on the New York stock market, his musical brother was rooted with his Amsterdam family until his premature death. “We are animals born to sing,” says Willem.
And if ever there was an actor born to sing, it is Will Young. He plays the part of the disconnected Willem in this 80-minute miniature with melodic grace. In an expensive-looking ivory sweater and a distinguished grey crop of hair that belies his youthful smile, he glides between a pretty sing-song speaking voice and a brash Manhattan bass. At turns louche, comic and fragile, he has a musician’s sense of rhythm. When he actually sings, as he does in the cathartic pay-off, it is delicate and angelic.
That Young lost his own brother in 2020 adds an edge of poignancy to this tale of a man half-heartedly trying to reconnect with his old life in the Netherlands after 12 years in the US. But although Song from Far Away ticks off the seven stages of grief, it is less about loss than about life’s trade-offs.
Young plays Willem as shallow and self-centred, a man good on ironic quips, poor on empathy. He is arch and funny but also superficial. He is at home in the featureless opulence of an up-market hotel, as realised on Ingrid Hu’s set of sheer marble walls and tall beige curtains. Returning to Amsterdam is not so much about facing his brother’s death as acknowledging an emotional void.
That explains why the play is elegiac without being moving. It is good that it avoids the easy sentimentality of death but, in asking questions about life, it is more reflective than dramatic. As a story it covers limited territory, but in its detail it is vivid and, in Kirk Jameson’s sometimes overstated production, thoughtful, engaging and superbly performed.
• At Home, Manchester, until 11 March
