Vacant Possession tells the story of mad old racist war veteran Joe who is trying to sell his house and young pacifist anarchist Gary, who has just inherited enough money to buy a house (plus his mum has a new man and wants him out of the house).
Joe is the type of madman you don’t get nowadays. What you really need is a long war and then forty years of being ignored and bottling the pain up to create the nutter in this show. Nowadays they’re sent to therapy on the way home from the war. Joe talks Gary into buying the place and then tells him that he has to help Joe commit suicide.
For the rest of the show we see Joe’s failed attempts at suicide force Gary to lend a hand, which only makes things worse, until the final hanging attempt. Be assured that someone does get it in the end.
The actors do an excellent job of giving their characters life and the main question we have to work out is: Was Joe trying to break Gary’s pacifist resolve by getting him to assist in the suicide or was Joe trying to make Gary a substitute son (a la Steptoe as the place is a veritable junkyard). This is a very good and thought provoking play with some excellent comic lines.
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