In his translator’s note to four plays by Garcia Lorca, John Edmunds states that the subtext of a play is ‘[…] the unspoken thoughts and feelings which give rise to what is spoken […]’ (Edmunds, 1999). However one chooses to define it, subtext is delicate territory, there are no prescriptions for its creation, no signs for its identification, it comes with intuition and sensitivity and its implications and usages are specific from playwright to actor and director alike. Ultimately though, as with most things performative, it is left to the audience to interpret its significance.

Bernard-Marie Koltès’ play Dans la Solitude des Champs de Coton (In the Solitude of Cotton Fields) is a dialogue between a dealer and a client whose paths cross somewhere in the shadows of a nocturnal urban wasteland. The men rally back and forth with ever-fervent tirades that question the implications of human interaction in the economic exchange of goods – a social inquest into the foundations of the free-market economy.

The play is written in a poetic, declamatory style, with a use of rhythm and inflection that echoes France’s classical trio: Moliere, Corneille and particularly Racine with his simple and elegant use of the alexandrine.

It is a play that presents scant physical action on stage, but while the bodies are rooted in the place of encounter, their words become vehicles on an invisible highway of overlapping sounds and racing thoughts that extends deep into the night; I have come to think of it as a set of ‘invisible dynamics’, by which I mean this:

Picture an urban street scene: high-rise buildings, streetlamps, traffic signs, cars, bikes and a flow of people negotiating space. City space is designed and built with attention to form. Form is of course inherent in the natural world, and as natural beings it is inherent in our own creations, in our ‘extensions’ of nature. However, it is in the interaction between a structure and the empty space that it fills that these ‘invisible dynamics’ come into play. In the example of the high-rise building, the dynamics of the structure do not simply end at the summit of the building or at its lateral protrusions, rather they continue beyond the physical object as projections in space (see my photograph below); and like radio waves or light rays they travel ad infinitum.

(Personal representation of architectural dynamics in space)

It is with this idea of invisible dynamics in mind that I approach the effect of language in Koltès’ play. And it is no coincidence that one of the marking moments in Koltès’ own life was a journey to the ancient Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, and it was there that he began to think about a theatre that exists in the space and time of any location.

While the foyer may feel somewhat like a museum of contemporary art and design, hidden away behind the scenes, in two very attractive performance spaces, was the stuff of childhood marvel. The small studio space was housing a hands-on theatre piece for toddlers and to be honest it felt like walking through a dream. On my way out I came across a local school outing milling in the foyer. The kids had just finished watching Tom’s Midnight Garden in the main auditorium and while the empty, minimal foyer has felt somewhat cold and daunting on the way in, it had now been transformed into a raucous, jubilant playground and the kids were ecstatic.

Shifting forward to the present day, and an article in the Guardian newspaper, by artistic director, David Lan, covers the regeneration project of the Young Vic theatre. Lan explains how he took on the enormous feat of raising £12.45m from 2002 onwards, partly through persuading the Arts Council that the then dilapidated theatre was worthy of rebuilding and partly through a succesful fundraising campaign spearheaded by Jude Law and many other well-wishers and funding bodies. The result will be open to public scrutiny in November this year.

From the outside, the project is showing all the hallmarks of another ultra-modern urban edifice, and while I am by no means opposed to modern architectural design, I do question the effect it has on the whole theatre ‘experience’. I cannot help but feel drawn to a type of theatre that goes on in murky, dim-lit spaces. The Shunt Vaults in London Bridge for example, a space that feels alive and breathing when you enter, albeit breathing like an old man puffing on a yellow Gauloise, but there is a tactile sense of history in old theatre spaces and I have always found that attractive. Certainly, such large-scale projects like the Unicorn and the Young Vic are signs of a healthy theatre industry, but it’s the ‘industry’ that bothers me. The red tape, the strings attached to funding bodies, the health and safety rules, the milimeter inspections etc etc. I openly encourage David Lan to hold onto his idea of saying ‘no to nothing’, unless that ‘nothing’ is the stale breath of government breathing down his neck, prescribing agendas.