Affluenza – Riverside Studios theatre review

Noah Schnapp as Dylan

A promising story about wealth, privilege and a fatal crash descends into a confused, tonally jarring mess

Andy Sandberg’s Affluenza begins with an intriguing enough premise. Sixteen-year-old Dylan, a privileged teenager, gets drunk, gets behind the wheel, and causes a devastating crash. His wealthy parents immediately start looking for ways to protect him from the consequences, while a high-flying lawyer is left to tangle with the moral considerations of taking on such a case.

There is plenty to get your teeth into here: wealth and the justice system, parental responsibility, inherited privilege and the way money can insulate people from the consequences of their actions. For a while, the production looks like it might have something interesting to say.

Then it starts making some very strange choices.

Juliet Cowan as Ellen and Donald Sage Mackay as Dennis

The play is set in the Hamptons, and its very American setting and tone create a strange distance for a production only running in London. The themes of wealth, privilege and accountability are obviously universal, but Affluenza never really bridges the gap between its particular American world and the audience sitting in Riverside Studios.

More importantly, Sandberg seems unsure what kind of play he actually wants this to be. Is it a serious examination of privilege and justice? A black comedy? A family drama? A satire of celebrity culture? The answer seems to be all of them, or perhaps none of them. It’s difficult to tell.

The first act offers some positive glimpses. The central argument over whether wealth can fundamentally distort a person’s understanding of right and wrong is interesting, and there’s the potential for an uncomfortable drama about what happens when one family has enough money to make a catastrophe someone else’s problem.

But rather than giving its characters room to become complicated people, Affluenza frequently turns them into caricatures. Almost everyone is cynical, nasty, selfish or vindictive.

Donald Sage Mackay as Charles and Janette Manrara as Angela

Even some of those who ought to provide the emotional counterweight to the morally bankrupt wealthy family are given questionable traits.

Donald Sage Mackay’s Charles, the father of one of the crash victims, argues that his daughter’s whiteness somehow explains why her injuries have not attracted the same attention or sympathy as those suffered by people from other demographics. It’s a questionable argument to leave so unchallenged, particularly when Charles is presented as one of the play’s more sympathetic voices.

Are we really supposed to accept this as the play’s own point about race and privilege, or are we meant to recognise it as the bitterness of a grieving father? Affluenza never makes that distinction clear. That lack of depth extends throughout the writing too. The people on stage feel underwritten, more like sketches than fully realised characters.

Owing to his Stranger Things fame, Noah Schnapp has been at the centre of the publicity surrounding the production, but it’s a surprisingly limited role, particularly in the first half. He doesn’t get much opportunity to turn Dylan into anything beyond a spoiled, apathetic teenager.

Schnapp and the wider cast all play multiple roles, but are similarly hamstrung by writing that sacrifices depth and characterisation for cheap laughs and melodramatic one-liners.

Rupert Young as an older Dylan and Wallis Currie-Wood as Crystal

We jump forward 25 years after the interval, with the court case that the first act spends so much time setting up happening entirely offstage, and suddenly find ourselves in the world of reality television, celebrity and inherited trauma.

Another strange choice, particularly when the trial itself could have provided the most interesting dramatic territory in the play.

Wallis Currie-Wood, as Crystal, brings some comic energy to the second half and gives one of the more enjoyable performances of the evening, but the broadness of the performance only adds to the sense that the play has lurched into a completely different tone.

By this point I was beginning to wonder where the play was actually going. Soon enough I would find out: nowhere, really.

Affluenza keeps piling one idea on top of another until even its strongest moments struggle to land. Character arcs are abandoned and the tone becomes increasingly farcical. There’s even a bizarre comic turn involving a lengthy musical number that drew some laughs from the audience, but left others squirming in their seats.

The production itself at least gives the actors a striking environment to work in. Charlie Corcoran’s set, initially depicting the family’s luxurious Hamptons home, is impressive and suitably glossy, while adapting cleverly as the play moves into its other settings. It’s one of the few elements of the production that feels fully realised.

The frustrating thing is that there is the makings of a much better play here. The questions it raises about wealth, accountability, justice and the ways privilege can shape a person’s life are all worth exploring, but the production never gives any of them enough depth or coherence to become genuinely meaningful.

Affluenza latches onto plenty of hot-button subjects, but has remarkably little of substance to say about them, and no convincing way of saying it.

All photo’s credited to Danny Kaan.

Affluenza plays at Riverside Studios until 28 November, you can purchase tickets here.