This Much I Know, Hampstead Theatre, London review — Stalin, psychology and white supremacists

At a time of year when most theatregoers have granted their rational brains a much-needed holiday, American playwright Jonathan Spector’s new drama begins by dragging its audience back to university. We’re in a psychology class, learning about the hidden factors influencing decisions of every magnitude: from detonating a nuclear weapon to deciding if we should switch off our mobile phones before entering the (lecture) theatre. What follows is frequently explosive stuff — taking in rightwing extremism, Stalin-era oppression and modern-day marital dysfunction — even if this production can periodically feel too much like hard work.

Spector’s play carefully weaves together three stories that explore how little control people’s rational brains actually have over their actions. Psychology professor Lukesh (the always-engaging Esh Alladi) has an answer for everything, until his novelist wife Natalya (Natalie Klamar) runs off, leaving only a cryptic note. She’s gone to Russia on the trail of her equally quixotic grandmother, the real-life Svetlana Stalina, daughter of the Soviet leader, who defected to the west in 1967 for mysterious reasons. And while Lukesh desperately waits for her to call, he’s got an enigma of his own to unravel. The whole campus has got its pitchforks out for his student Harold (Oscar Adams), the formerly loyal son of a famous white supremacist. Can Lukesh trust this troubled young man’s sudden interest in expanding his worldview?

As even a brief summary shows, this is a play that’s seriously overburdened with plot, wearing its research heavily. Faced with enough material for a whole TV series, director Chelsea Walker’s production opts for clarity over subtlety. Adams and Klamar lay on ridiculous, borsch-thick accents for this story’s Russian scenes, their abrupt transitions between east and west prompting ripples of audience laughter. The real-life Svetlana’s story is fascinating, but she feels like a campy stereotype here, feeding juicy nuggets of info about Stalin’s home life to an imaginary audience of eager journalists.

Two authoritarian figures loom over this story — Stalin and Harold’s white-supremacist dad. Their voices roar from glitching analogue TV screens, showing the risks of relying on ideology instead of human emotion. But although Spector’s play continually gestures at big ideas and constantly talks about the intricacies of the human brain, there’s a real lack of psychological insight here. There’s just not time or space to explore any single character’s battle with the choices they’re making, and there’s a frustrating lack of resolution to Natalya’s Russian journey.

Still, this is a play that’s packed with jolting moments and knotty ideas, many directly drawn, according to Spector, from the work of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. It acts as a fitting companion piece to Tom Stoppard’s similarly cerebral Rock ’n’ Roll in Hampstead Theatre’s main house: a sharp, pacy theatrical workout for mulled-wine-softened brains.

★★★☆☆

To January 27, hampsteadtheatre.com