One of the hits to come out of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Curing Room is based on an allegedly true anecdote recalled in George Steiner’s The Death of Tragedy. It’s Spring 1944 and seven Soviet soldiers have been locked in an abandoned cellar, stripped naked and left for dead.
Their survival instincts are put to the test when it becomes apparent that in order to live, other’s lives must be forfeit. Themes of loyalty, murder and eventually cannibalism are dissected here. What value do you place on the life of others, and indeed your sanity?
The play is visceral in its portrayal of the deaths that follow and the execution of each (in the literal and theatrical sense) is gruesome and convincing. I won’t deliver any spoilers as to who dies first and which men follow, but what begins as a seemingly rather erotic set-up of seven soldiers stripped bare and imprisoned soon becomes quite horrific. Perhaps there are too many characters here for us to develop an attachment to each that the story needs for us to care about them beyond our basic desire to see them survive. The transition from comrades to cannibals is quick and the focus heavy on the killing. It’s a story that would suit a cinema format better than a theatre, or at least it needs more time on stage to develop our interest in each victim.
It’s somewhat fascinating to see a crowd of gay men gather in the Pleasance Theatre bar awaiting to see The Curing Room. The play made a name for itself primarily because its cast of seven men spend the entire performance naked. I would hardly think the audience, virtually all gay males with just a handful of women, were here because the story proved itself so compelling. But watching seven handsome men in the nude is an obvious selling point. It’s an interesting correlation between the play’s plot and audience expectations – the price we the audience place on our voyeurism is the uncomfortable unfolding of the cannibalism that takes place. (Indeed the connection between sexual tension created by a director and the ensuing murderous aftermath is a common narrative that runs through many horror movies.)
In this regard, perhaps The Curing Room’s lasting message is that it says more about the ravenous expectations of its audience than the motivations of seven Soviet soldiers whose difficult choices are based on a basic human desire to survive.
• Pleasance Islington, Carpenters Mews, North Rd, London, N7 9EF
