Synopsis

A seemingly ordinary home, where reality shifts like sand beneath the characters’ feet, and the line between truth and fiction blurs into obscurity.

Clair and her husband Christopher navigate a series of increasingly surreal encounters in their home. As Clair, a translator, speaks of meeting a famous writer and Christopher grapples with job insecurity, their conversations take on an unsettling quality. The arrival of their neighbor Jenny, a nurse whose husband is away at war, further destabilises the couple’s sense of reality. Throughout, a young girl appears, her presence both familiar and strange.

Crimp’s enigmatic drama masterfully explores themes of identity, storytelling, and the nature of reality. Through its fragmented structure and unreliable characters, the play challenges our understanding of truth and fiction. As Clair’s diary reveals her failed attempts at writing and her creation of invented characters, the audience is left to question the authenticity of everything they’ve witnessed. The City is a dizzying exploration of the human need to construct narratives, even when faced with an inner emptiness. The play’s final revelation forces us to reconsider everything that came before, leaving us in a state of productive uncertainty about the nature of creativity, relationships, and the self.