Construction of the Human Heart

Construction of the Human Heart runs from April 16 – May 3 2014 at the Tap Gallery. By Ross Mueller, directed by Dino Dimitriades.

Construction of the Human Heart is one of the cleverest pieces of writing I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing onstage. It’s dense and difficult, but it’s also complex, nuanced, multi-layered. As the layers are peeled back and back and back, more and more is revealed.

This is normally where I’d offer a brief précis of the play. The “plot” of this show, if it can be said to have one (it is picaresque, more interested in scenes than in a linear narrative) is relatively simple. Two writers, a man and a woman, are in love, have a child, and lose that child. But to reduce the show to this brief description is doing it a major disservice. There is so much in this play that seems to be about so little.

Writers writing about writers writing has the potential to be – and often is – the height of self-indulgence. What sets Construction of the Human Heart apart is the fact that, although it features writers, it is not really about them. Instead, it’s about stories, about scripting: about the way we script the narratives of our own lives, how we use stories to save us, and how we construct our own emotional worlds, our human hearts.

It’s the kind of play I’d like to read so I could unpick and unpack more of the ideas embedded within it, but the performative aspect to it is key. I’m not normally a huge fan of the Brechtian alienation effect (distancing the audience emotionally from the work so as to force them to think about it analytically) but it was perfectly employed here. Director Dino Dimitriades has mounted a very intelligent production of what must have been a horrendously difficult script to approach.

Although Construction of the Human Heart touches on very emotional issues – love, life, loss – it is not really emotionally engaging. I do not think it was at all intended to be: the alienation effect sees to that. But intellectually…? SO ENGAGING. I was transfixed. I was glad it wasn’t longer (it’s only an hour), because I think it would have become exhausting. The delicate threads of story and scene and art and performativity are woven together here to form a fascinating cerebral tapestry. It made me think, and I think I’m going to keep thinking about it a lot.

If it’s not already obvious, I thought Construction of the Human Heart was a fantastic piece of theatre. It was theatre that had to be theatre. No other medium would have sufficed. It’s a difficult piece – do not go along if you simply want to be entertained – but I thought it was so, so fascinating. And the production does the script justice. If this is indicative of the level of work they’re producing, I’ll be extremely excited to see what Apocalypse Theatre Company do next.