Not So Musical Monday: The Nap
The Nap is a comedic play about a snooker player from Sheffield, England who is about to compete in the World Championships. It’s also about class and family relationships sort of, but it’s really mostly about snooker, which is a British form of billiards. The play gives a little bit of an explanation of the rules of snooker and a tiny amount about the scoring. After seeing The Nap I think I only moderately understand what snooker is, but I understand even less about what The Nap is.
When it is at its best, The Nap has some clever word play that had me readily laughing. One character’s habit of saying the “wrong word” had them making note for example of their “peanut analogy.” Other high points include some witty banter between characters that was thoroughly British in the most complimentary of senses. It was also at times incredibly frantic including a recurring gag where the characters tried to recall a movie title by describing the actors in less than helpful ways— “[it] stars that guy who was married to that woman.” You could see the reasons the British press broadly loved the play in reviews calling it a large variety of words meaning smart and funny.
The issue is the play also tries to make you care about its characters, and it is much less successful in this endeavor. Characters aren’t terribly developed and often have personality traits that might make for funny lines or decisions but don’t necessarily feel real enough to make you care about them. This is never more true than in the actual playing of the snooker. The play markets itself as having the interesting twist of the tournament playing out in front of you.
It’s true—they play snooker on stage and there is something neat about knowing the actor has to make shots in front of you in real time for the play. His competitor is a professional snooker player and former US snooker national champion, which is admittedly smart casting to just get a professional rather than try to make two actors hit key shots. During the playing though, I didn’t care about who won and lost, but I did say several times “oh wow that was impressive.” I have heard stories that the show has the potential to hit a bit of a rut depending on the actual shots being missed when they should be made or vice versa, but I can’t speak to that and leave it to you as an audience member to see if you feel the same.
Some solid word play just left me wanting more. The frantic fun nature left and was really only filled by characters that just didn’t develop enough to make me want anything more than the frantic nature to come back. Maybe this play would hit more if I grew up with a love of snooker, but ultimately I will likely remember this play as the one where I thought the guy made some impressive pool shots on stage and likely not think of much else.