The Royal Court’s latest production has already furrowed brows. It became known that the dramatist was telling the truth in the play’s title. That Is Not Who I Am is not by Dave Davidson, who has “worked in the security industry”; it is by an established playwright. Some thought it misguided for a new writing theatre to be flagging this up as coming from a fresh voice; some thought the kerfuffle a distraction from the work. Actually, the wheeze is double-edged: it steers an audience into the play’s subject, but also narrows it. That Is Not Who I Am is more ample than the identity-theft promotion suggests.
There is brilliance here (as you’d expect from a writer whose name is easily discoverable but which I shan’t disclose), though it becomes partly occluded. At its best, Lucy Morrison’s production spins between many modes of visionariness and fabrication. Here are lies by government and by lovers, crackpot theories (get rid of HIV by doing downward dog) and prescient fears. Mental disturbance merges with proportionate anxiety: “Just cos it’s in your imagination doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
