This is the first time I’ve reviewed a show without watching every minute. I was there for just over four of the 24 hours in which Ruth Wilson was The Second Woman. When I left – for practical reasons, not pique – on Friday night, a queue was snaking down the side of the Young Vic out of sight of the entrance. By 3 on Saturday morning, the theatre tweeted that there was only a three-hour wait to get in; at 9 it advised it was pointless to start queueing.
The queuers were waiting to see Wilson repeat a seven-minute scene with 100 different actors, most of them not professional, none rehearsed. Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s play, inspired by John Cassavetes’s film Opening Night, was first seen seven years ago in Australia. The action takes place in a transparent box with a table, two chairs, a drinks trolley and the air flushed scarlet; ambulant camera operators capture closeups on an adjacent screen. Certain things always occur: Wilson is greeted by someone carrying a Chinese takeaway, who apologises for recent behaviour. The two of them – about to be not a couple – dance. Wilson throws some food and receives a final declaration. There is always more noodling than canoodling.
