Only God knows the complete Truth. And She’s not sharing.
JB Priestley’s brilliantly intricate play Dangerous Corner is a fascinating exploration of the concept of Truth.
The premise of the play is that everyone has secrets. It’s a popular myth, because it suggests we are more than we seem. It’s a myth that says, despite appearances, that we are actually endlessly fascinating and intriguing. “He must live a double life,” the more catty among us say, “because his life couldn’t really be as dull as all that.”
And much of Priestley’s play involves the unraveling and revealing of the character’s secrets. Director Peter Lavelle, with an intelligent light hand, makes this enthralling theatre. His cast very skillfully present characters torn between the desire to conceal and the seeming relief of letting it all come out.
Photo by Craig O’Regan
But the play does more. It’s not just an Agatha Christie style whodunit. It raises some very thought provoking ideas about the very concept of Truth itself.
Any chain of questions aimed at discovering the reality of a situation must come to an end, and that end, really, is rather arbitrary. What we call the Truth is simply the point at which we cease asking questions. The Truth is merely the point at which we abandoned the search.
Perhaps only a four year old can perpetually ask ‘why?’ And perhaps that’s why we are told we must become like little ones if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Because all they know is that they don’t.
Veronica Kaye
Dangerous Corner
at The Genesian Theatre until 10 Aug
Theatre Red 
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