'Tao of Glass' review — Phelim McDermott is totally enthralling in this love letter to Philip Glass and theatre

Read our review of Tao of Glass, now in performances at @sohoplace to 12 September.

Summary

• Phelim McDermott's Tao of Glass comes to @sohoplace
• The show explores creation and the music of Philip Glass
• McDermott is totally enthralling in this dreamlike production

“‘This show is a love letter,’ reads the programme for A Tao of Glass. It’s a love letter to theatre, to the music of Philip Glass – which the show’s writer, director and performer Phelim McDermott has adored since childhood – and to the messy, miraculous process of collaboration and creation. This is the story of a show that never happened, but also of what it takes to make theatre in the first place: the ideas it nurtures and the unexpected paths they lead us down.

The lights come up on an empty stage. McDermott begins not as a performer but as one of us, seated in the audience. Eventually he stands to speak. “I’m failing. I’m a theatre maker,” he admits. For years, McDermott had dreamed of creating a show set to the music of Philip Glass. His opportunity – an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s book In the Night Kitchen, about a boy tumbling into a surreal underworld – came to an abrupt end when Sendak died.

This is doubly disappointing as it transpires McDermott is something of a Glass superfan. His music has carried him through life. McDermott played it on repeat as a teenager, and later ended up directing three of his operas. But with the big project never quite working out, here we are with McDermott and a head full of ideas.

Using Taoism as the show’s guiding structure, he leads us through a dreamlike collage of memories, reflections, and half-formed visions, following thoughts wherever they drift. At one point we join him in a floating tank, where he’s supposed to relax, but the money he’s spending, the phone calls he’s got to make, and all the theatre he’s yet to create interrupt his sense of calm.

In a way, McDermott and Kirsty Housley’s production is an utterly beautiful sight. Sheets of music fly from the ceiling before coming together to form a wisp of long hair or elaborate costumes, while a wonderfully endearing boy puppet plays both McDermott’s son and a younger version of himself. But the whole play feels like it could be cut by at least an hour. Sections seem to last an age – we stay with McDermott during his float session for at least 20 minutes. At its worst, it feels like an episode of self-indulgence.

Now, McDermott is a seriously successful director – not least because he won multiple Olivier Awards for My Neighbour Totoro. But the McDermott we see onstage here, supposedly speaking to us in the present tense, constantly presents himself as a scrambling artist. At one point he recalls being fired as the director of a Broadway show, only to mention that he spent some of his salary from the job on a glass coffee table worth more than £1,000.

Maybe I’m being pedantic – creativity is always an act of uncertainty, after all. But it leaves the impression of a self-portrait that isn’t entirely truthful. Still, for a play that mirrors a mind in the act of creation, and in a constant state of dreaming, it is something of a wonder. And McDermott himself is totally enthralling. You’ll either love it or hate it, but A Tao of Glass is remarkably different from anything else in the West End.

Tao of Glass is at @sohoplace to 12 September. Book Tao of Glass tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Tao of Glass (Photos by Johan Persson)