For those audience members that might not have visited the
Roy Arias Stage before, the walk up to the second floor for Trainspotting Live
NYC is a bit of a surreal experience. The staircase winds up through a tall, nondescript
stairwell and drops you into a warehouse like interior, a bar behind you and
the greeter the only indications you’re in the right place. Grab a drink, and
line up to enter the (graffiti filled) black box theater to the flashes of
neon, the beat of 1990s dance music and the exuberant cast and you know you’re
in for something wildly different.
Trainspotting Live is an immersive experience not just
of light, music, and the occasional liquids but of joy, despair and elation. It
is based on the book, not the movie, so some scenes may seem out of sequence
or lacking altogether - if your only experience with Trainspotting is the 1996
movie of the same name. But in the moment, alive with intensity, it doesn’t really
matter.
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| Andrew Barrett as Renton in Trainspotting Live |
Many of the set pieces are funny, gross and rude. The
audience is treated occasionally as a coconspirator, sometimes as an enemy and
sometimes simply as voyeurs. But the audience never feels forgotten or superfluous.
For those that have no connection to the book or movie, some
of the surprising moments can be jarring. Trainspotting Live is the story of Renton
and his group of friends, surviving in the heroin scene in Edinburgh in the 90s. Andrew Barrett
does an amazing job anchoring Renton inside this immersive funhouse of a show.
Renton is ring master, bedrock and sounding board for his friends: Tommy and
Sick Boy. Greg Esplin (Tommy) and Tariq Malik (Sick Boy) are, like Mr. Barrett,
excellent in holding our attention in the course of the evening. Mr. Esplin
is particularly effective as his good boy spirals off the rails after a bad
love affair.
The other cast members, Lauren Downie, Pia Hagen, Tom
Chandler and Oliver Sublet, pull duty as multiple characters, bringing the
story to vibrant life. Each and everyone of them have standout moments that bewitch, enthrall or jar the audience into attention. To watch Lauren Downie seamlessly switch from an uptight mum into a frightening date who is demanding to lose her anal virginity is quite an impressive sight (if a bit scary).
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| Andrew Barrett, Lauren Downie, Pia Hagen and Olivier Sublet |
Renton’s journey is documented from party boy to heroin enthusiast
to detox, to the one sober member of his team, as his friends take paths that are
sometimes parallel and sometimes skew far away from Renton’s own.
There are some scenes that are designed (in the book and the show) to gross us out. In particular, the embarrassing
morning after a night of sex and the most disgusting toilet in Scotland scenes, will put some people off. But for the audience I was with, those scenes somehow
morphed into bonding moments that brought us along with the storytellers.
Trainspotting Live is crazy fun entertainment. I love the
immersiveness of a show like Sleep No More, but Trainspotting Live takes it up a few
notches as the actors acknowledge and revel in the audience, blithely taking us
on a youthful, embarrassing and exhilarating trip most of us have long since
outgrown.
Trainspotting Live | Playwright: Irvine Welsh (novel) Harry
Gibson (Adaptation) | Director: Adam Spreadbury-Maher, Greg Esplin | Cast: Andrew Barrett, Tom
Chandler, Lauren Downie, Greg Esplin, Pia Hagen, Tariq Malik, Olivier Sublet |
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