Safiyah Zanabi’s 1001 explores the dangers of late night conversations at Theatre503
“I feel like something bad is going to happen tonight”
Can any good come from deep and meaningful conversations at 4am? On the night before a friend’s funeral, Leila is struggling to get to sleep and wakes up partner Tom whilst trying to read. An initially playful game of telling stories to each other to get back to sleep soon gets derailed though, as their conversation turns increasingly personal and move into tricky terrain.
Safiyah Zanabi’s 1001 begins with real rom-com energy, the banter between the pair picking up on all manner of Gen Z neuroses, particularly from Leila for whom the seven year itch has come a few years early. She’s clocked that their relationship has lasted for 1001 days but niggling doubts are playing on her mind about whether she should be happy about being happy or if there’s something more profound driving her anxiety.
“You are the thing I thought I wanted” she cries, as she peppers Tom with endless impossible questions without really wanting answers it would seem. And as Tom does begin to reply, it would appear she’s not quite prepared for the honesty that comes with going this deep in the wee small hours. The shift from comic repartee to something more meaningful is tricky though and I’m not Zanabi currently quite manages it, even as she has interesting things to say about whether couples’ differences are surmountable.
Packing in such weighty, existential questions about love, life, death and drinking problems is asking quite a lot for a young couple who’ve barely been together a couple of years and Mimi Pattinson’s direction doesn’t always help – shrouding the pair in crepuscular gloom early on (and understandably so) thereby restricting our investment with them from the off, it’s not really abundantly clear that this is a relationship to stay up all night for, even when the lights are switched on.
Zanabi plays Leila on the borderline of amusing and annoying as her seemingly erratic trains of thought take just a little too long to coalesce into the profundity she’s reaching for, hints of inspiration from One Thousand and One Nights nestling with the challenges of contemporary life. Against her, Adam Isla O’Brien’s Tom has a tricky job in responding believably to the inconsistencies of Leila’s tirades and executing his own late-bending arc as well.