Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Two\u2019s company, three\u2019s a crowd. So the saying goes, and it\u2019s often a rule of thumb in drama, where even the hint of a third person can have drastic consequences for relationships. Think of Shakespeare\u2019s Othello, Harold Pinter\u2019s Betrayal \u2014 or pretty much any bedroom farce you care to name. Jealousy, pain and shame fuel the action, be it tragic or comic.So what if a couple actually chooses to expand? That\u2019s the starting point for Mike Bartlett\u2019s new play Unicorn. After 20 years of marriage, Polly and Nick decide to experiment with becoming a \u201cthrouple\u201d, inviting a younger woman called Kate to join them.The fact that the couple are played by Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan, who so memorably scoped out all the anguish of infidelity in Abi Morgan\u2019s TV series The Split, only adds to the frisson. Here the two actors (joined by Erin Doherty as Kate) will be discussing fantasies, feelings and fears in the family kitchen. \u201cYou suddenly realise how much shame we all carry about sex and relationships,\u201d says Bartlett, 44, when we meet during a break in rehearsals. \u201cAnd how we don\u2019t talk about it. So one of the things in the play is finding the words to talk about this stuff \u2014 and a theatre full of people seems like the right place to have a go at that.\u201dUnicorn opens in London\u2019s West End just before Valentine\u2019s Day \u2014 which would make it an interesting first date for those who feel bold enough. And Bartlett has form with candour. Anyone who saw the premiere of his play Cock in 2009, which was similarly frank about sex, love and relationships, will remember the intensity of that experience. At one point a couple talked their way so precisely through a sex scene that they raised the temperature in the theatre without removing a single stitch of clothing.These are fictional people, but we can put them through the mill to vicariously explore stuff about ourselvesThe mischievous title of that play made a point. It was near-impossible to talk about it without wandering into smutty double entendres. When it comes to sex, the playwright suggested, we are often more comfortable giggling than talking. But both Cock, and now Unicorn, aim to reach through that into deeper questions about love, trust, intimacy and mortality.\u201cThere\u2019s the traditional m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cThat\u2019s not a life, it\u2019s a moment. But then there are also people who are trying to create a full, ongoing, faithful relationship with three or four people. And that feels like something else. This play deals with both of those things in a way.\u201dIn one sense, Unicorn picks up where Cock left off. In the earlier play John, a young man on a break from a same-sex relationship, fell in love with a woman. In its articulation onstage of the complexity and fluidity of sexuality and identity, it felt daring in 2009. But John\u2019s real dilemma was being forced to choose between two people. In Cock that leads to a great deal of heartache. In Unicorn the questions are differently framed.\u201cIt extends into whether it is possible to have an intimate, loving, faithful relationship with more than one person at the same time,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cCan you have intimacy in a triangle? What would that look like? What stories could you tell?\u201dPolly and Nick\u2019s story, he says \u2014 neatly sidestepping any question about research \u2014 is not so much based in personal experience as personal knowledge: \u201cWhen I have a character who is of a different identity to me expressing a specific experience that\u2019s important, what I try to do is make sure that expression comes from someone who has said that: that I\u2019ve absolutely heard it, and I respect it, and I don\u2019t mess with that.\u201d\u201cYou need, as an artist, to have freedom to play,\u201d he adds. \u201cAt the same time you have big responsibilities to be truthful. [The stage] should be the ideal place to explore this stuff. These are fictional people, but we can put them through the mill to vicariously explore stuff about ourselves.\u201dBartlett is himself an intriguing individual. Quiet and courteous, he has the air of a thoughtful professor picking his way across the minefield of a tricky seminar. Yet his work is often strikingly audacious and \u201cputting characters through the mill\u201d is something at which he excels. His hit 2015 BBC drama Doctor Foster, about a GP\u2019s life falling apart, demonstrated a Jacobean relish for psychological chaos, and onstage he strides into tricky territory with verve, precision and the ability to shape-shift with the subject.What first put him on the map were his short, sharp splinters of plays training the spotlight on a tight group of people \u2014 works such as Cock, or Bull (about office bullying) and Game (which shockingly combined video-game principles with the desperation of the housing market). Brilliant and blisteringly funny, they were also bracingly honest about how badly human beings can behave when in emotional pain.Then came more expansive dramas on huge themes. Albion (2017), a Chekhovian piece set in an Oxfordshire country garden, explored British identity. The scintillating Shakespearean epic King Charles III (2014), which Bartlett described as a \u201cfuture history play\u201d, depicted Charles\u2019s accession and a constitutional crisis when the new monarch stands on principle. The 47th (2022) imagined the lead-up to a second Trump presidency. Both examined power \u2014 perceived, actual, shifting \u2014 and both were written in blank verse.What was fiction a few years ago has now come to pass. So how does the reality compare?\u201cI was right about some things and some things didn\u2019t happen,\u201d says Bartlett, grinning. \u201cReally The 47th was about whether the Democrats had an answer to Trump. In the play it was pretty clear that they didn\u2019t \u2014 and it turned out they didn\u2019t\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009You have to understand why, when he speaks, people listen.\u201cAnd with King Charles III and Albion, it was trying to look at what we want Britain to be. We could really do with a great big public conversation about Britain.\u201dSplitting his time across screen and stage, Bartlett values the way television can shift mainstream attitudes: \u201cPeople get to know an individual character who they love and who is different from them: that\u2019s a real power.\u201dBut even so, viewers can switch off, switch over or walk away. For him, it is theatre that can offer a potent response to today\u2019s world and where the work can be boldest, whether personal or political. He quotes the writer and academic Bert O States\u2019s description of theatre as \u201cgreat reckonings in little rooms\u201d.\u201cI feel that if theatre didn\u2019t exist right now, we would invent it as this radical new form because we need it,\u201d he says. \u201c[In the theatre] we focus, we do one thing, we imagine people who aren\u2019t real, so no one\u2019s going to get hurt, and then we explore stuff which is nuanced, complicated, difficult and not binary.\u201cIt\u2019s shared and no one can switch it off. You are in and you\u2019re going to have to deal with it. If you said, \u2018What\u2019s a great antidote to all the problems we have on social media and in public discourse?\u2019, theatre would be it.\u201dUnicorn, Garrick Theatre, London, February 4-April 25, unicorntheplay.co.ukFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Two\u2019s company, three\u2019s a crowd. So the saying goes, and it\u2019s often a rule of thumb in drama, where even the hint of a third person can have drastic consequences for relationships. Think of Shakespeare\u2019s Othello, Harold Pinter\u2019s Betrayal \u2014 or pretty much any<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":188946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-188945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188947,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188945\/revisions\/188947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}