The Pitchfork Disney

Synopsis

The play opens with the characters of Presley and Haley, two adults living alone in the East End of London. They lead a childish fantasy existence, living mainly off chocolate. Their parents died a decade before, although their exact fate is not described.

They tell each other stories and discuss their dreams and fears.

From their window, they see two men, one of whom is apparently sick. Agitated, Haley sucks on a drugged dummy and goes to sleep. Despite their fear of outsiders, Presley brings the sick man in, who promptly vomits on the floor. The man introduces himself as Cosmo Disney, and explains that he and his partner are showmen. His sickness is caused by the fact that his particular talent consists of eating insects and small animals. Cosmo emotionally manipulates Presley who tells Cosmo about a recurring dream he has, involving a serial killer named 'The Pitchfork Disney'.

Almost immediately after Presley finishes his story, Cosmo's partner arrives. He is a huge, masked and apparently mute figure named Pitchfork Cavalier. His act is simply taking his mask off to reveal his hideously deformed face. He sings a wordless song, dances with the unconscious Haley and eats some chocolate. Cosmo convinces Presley to accompany Pitchfork to the shops, promising friendship. As soon as they leave, Cosmo performs a sexual assault on Haley by inserting one of his fingers soaked in medicine into her mouth. Presley unexpectedly returns and realises Cosmo's true motives, and breaks his finger which he used to assault Haley. Cosmo flees. Pitchfork briefly returns, terrifies Presley and then leaves. Haley awakes, and the two express their fear.

Themes and interpretation

The play is a dreamlike piece with surreal undertones. It primarily deals with fear, particularly childhood fears. Dreams and stories are also explored, and indeed, the entire play can be interpreted as a dream in itself.

Another recurring theme is that of snakes, being described by Presley in two monologues. In the first he describes killing one in a frying pan and in the second he recounts seeing one kill a mouse in the reptile house of a zoo and then later coming home and watching a television programme about a Christian cult who worship snakes. Cosmo himself can be interpreted as being a manifestation of a snake as he eats insects and small animals for a living, claims to have been born hatching from an egg and that he got new skin having unzipped and threw away the skin he had from being a baby.

Concerning interpretations of The Pitchfork Disney Ridley mentioned in 2016 that “Every time it’s revived it means something different. There’s a production of it on in Canada at the moment which in the present climate is being seen as a play about terrorism – about the fear of the outside coming in and the fear of change. A few years ago it was about the fear of sex, intimacy, of being touched... [my plays are] like tuning forks, they vibrate with whatever’s going on in the atmosphere at the time.”

Development

Ridley began writing the play while still an art student at St Martin's School of Art. While there he created performance art pieces which often consisted of long fast paced monologues detailing dream sequences and characters with shifting identities, which usually Ridley himself would perform in art galleries. From writing these some of Ridley’s friends, who were leaving art school to instead pursue acting, suggested that his monologues would make a good basis for a stage play. Ridley began writing The Pitchfork Disney based on two of his monologues that were companion pieces, one centring on a character who was afraid of everything and one who was afraid of nothing, with the play forming from the idea of what would happen if these two characters met.

Ridley also got the inspiration for the character of Cosmo from when, at the age of 18, he witnessed in a pub a man wearing a red sequined jacket proceed to eat a variety of different insects onstage for entertainment.

Reception and Legacy

The play was considered shocking for the time it was produced, with reportedly some walkouts throughout the show’s run, along with rumours of audience members fainting. One verified account of an audience member fainting happened when Ridley was in the audience, leading to discussions backstage to if there should be a nurse present for each performance.

Alistair Macaulay of the Financial Times praised Rupert Graves’s performance as Presley as well as Matthew Lloyd’s direction. He also praised Ridley’s writing for its pace and for “working frequent humour and oddly poetic strokes of absurdity into his story” but criticised the play for not having a “persuasive sense of place” and for being “too surely mapped out” for a play that “journey[’s] into the self-conscious”.

While stating that “the play is far from unflawed” Paul Taylor of The Independent gave a positive review, calling the play “remarkable” and praising Dominic Keating’s performance as Cosmo as well as writing that "it is not a work you will forget in a hurry".

Though praising the production’s acting and direction Nick Curtis of Plays & Players gave a mostly negative review with criticism directed towards the script, stating that “Ridley opts increasingly for atmosphere over content” as well as criticising the themes for being “directionless and almost random” and for the play having an “absence of a heart or soul”.

Reacting to negative reviews Ian Herbert in Theatre Record defended the play citing it as “a very important debut” and favourably compared Ridley’s writing to Harold Pinter and added that Ridley is a writer to watch out for: “he has a little to learn yet about dramatic structure and all the boring rules, but he can already create astonishingly original characters and give them lines that hold an audience spellbound.”

By the end of its original run the play had acquired something of a cult following with one group of actors reportedly seeing the production several times and on its final performance wearing T-shirts with lines from the play printed on them in big bold lettering. It was so successful that the Bush Theatre for the first time in its history had to schedule an extra matinee performance to meet audience demand.

For his performance as Presley, Rupert Graves subsequently won the Charrington Fringe Award for Best Actor.

Years after its premiere the play gained in reputation, achieving recognition as a major work and highly influential in the development of in-yer-face theatre, which dominated new writing in British Theatre during much of the 1990s.

Bush Theatre artistic director Dominic Dromgoole wrote in 2000 that the play "took the expectations of a normal evening in the theatre, rolled them around a little, jollied them along, tickled their tummy, and then savagely, fucked them up the arse… Performed right at the beginning of 1990, this was one of the first plays to signal a new direction for new writing. No politics, no naturalism, no journalism, no issues. In its place, character, imagination, wit, sexuality, skin and the soul."

Critic and leading expert in In-yer-face theatre, Aleks Sierz, has often cited the play as a pioneering work. In his introduction to the Methuen Classics edition of the play-text, Sierz wrote “The Pitchfork Disney is not only a key play of the 90s; it is the key play of that decade... Its legend grew and grew until it became the pivotal influence on the generation of playwrights that followed. It is a foundation text; it separates then from now.”

Significant plays that critics believe have been influenced by or bear homage to the play include:

Monologues from the play have also become popular audition pieces, most notably Presley's speech about killing a snake in a frying pan and Hayley's speech about being chased into a church by savage dogs.

Notable productions

Premiere

2 January 1991 at The Bush Theatre, London. Directed by Matthew Lloyd.

American Premiere

5 February 1995 at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington D.C.. Directed by Rob Bundy.

Winner of ‘Outstanding resident play’ and ‘Outstanding lead actor, resident play’ for Wallace Acton at the Helen Hayes Awards, with nominations also for ‘Outstanding Supporting actress, resident play’ for Mary Teresa Fortuna, ‘Outstanding Director, resident play’ for Rob Bundy, ‘Outstanding Set Design, resident play or musical’ for James Kronzer and ‘Outstanding Sound Design, resident play or musical’ for Daniel Schrader.

New York Premiere

8 April 1999 at Blue Light Theater Company, New York. Directed by Rob Bundy.

21st Anniversary Revival

25 January 2012 at The Arcola Theatre, London. Directed by Edward Dick.

London (2017)

27 January - 18 March 2017 at Shoreditch Town Hall, London. Directed by Jamie Lloyd.