Caryl Churchill’s “Triumph” Falters at the Almeida Theatre

It’s not every day that a 20-minute play gets programmed, and rarer still at a theatre like The Almeida, but for Caryl Churchill’s Triumph an exception has been made for what you’d hope would be an exceptional work.

Unfortunately, the story here doesn’t live up to the daring programming, but its sell-out success with audiences may promise an interesting future of similar flash-in-the-pan short work at Almeida. So writes Harry Conway for theQR.co.uk…

Part of the fun here is the brave decision to have Churchill’s shorter production occupy the same stage as a longer-running one, as the podium to stage right and the large bed to stage left sit squarely in front of the backdrop of The Almeida’s current production of Odets’ Golden Boy (who are officially thanked in the programme for accommodating this design). In the middle of these mixed sets is a TV screen through which our protagonist Iris (Kate O’Flynn) has her beaming face broadcast as she celebrates atrocity after atrocity occurring around her.

A Modern Spin Doctor in Ancient Rome

The premise of Triumph is abundantly clear by the second scene; Iris is a modern spin doctor/press secretary cast backwards in time to The Roman Empire, and her job is to gleefully announce to the world all the wonderful achievements of her increasingly excessive and cruel master as they deify themselves as a living god and terrorise their subjects.

“Unfortunately, the story here doesn’t live up to the daring programming, but its sell-out success with audiences may promise an interesting future of similar flash-in-the-pan short work at Almeida.“

It’s Flynn’s Trump-esque delivery that makes the parallel drawn here blatant, and it’s a novel comparison that Churchill backs up by a very particular historical source on the period.

Drawing from The Twelve Caesars

This source is stated in the pre-set with the central TV screen informing us that “Everything said about the Emperors comes from The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius”, a work known equally for its historical value as it is for its sensationalist character thanks to its salacious approach to documenting the twelve Roman Emperors who had reigned for about 150 years by the time Suetonius wrote it. It makes for an interesting source as it’s the equivalent of writing a biography of all the Prime Ministers since 1900, based purely on newspaper headlines and any surviving rumors of their personal character.

**Almeida Theatre: *Triumph* — Matthew Beard and Kate O’Flynn (Credit: Marc Brenner)**

This may be why Churchill introduces a second twist, as the evils of the single Emperor under whom Iris labours is not a 1:1 with any particular Emperor from Suetonius but instead an amalgamation of their worst parts, mixing Nero’s penchant for murdering family members with Caligula’s mad excesses, such as tying a fleet together and covering it in earth so he could ride his horse across the sea. The Emperor’s disdain for truth and any objective reality that might disagree with their own subjective one is made clear, but beyond this surface level insight there’s little to take away.

A Lackluster Narrative Arc

Things aren’t helped by the lacklustre narrative either. Iris naturally comes to doubt her work as a fascist apologist as her relationship with another journalist, Marcus (Matthew Beard), who opposes the Emperor deepens and the shadowy Rufus (Sargon Yelda) closes in on them both with deadly, but highly predictable, consequences and…that’s it. Despite some effort from director James Macdonald to liven things up with some beautiful fire-filled braziers, the narrative and production remain limp throughout and amount to little more than “That Trump fella is a bit of a fascist ain’t he?”

It’s a warmed-over political statement with the only real novelty stemming from the Roman setting where so much more could have been explored, including the rich vein of Christian Persecution driven by these Emperors (an inversion of the modern Trump dynamic) and the intense violence in some familiar hotspots in the Levant they reigned over. Instead, Churchill chooses cliché over controversy and ultimately offers precious little. Fingers crossed that The Almeida keep platforming short work as they’ve done here, but hopefully it’ll be a bit more daring in future.

Featured Image: Almeida Theatre_Triumph_Artwork by Gooz Studio