Writer: Christian Graham
Director: Ebenezer Bamgboye
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In the modern world, we hear much about concerns for the mental health of teenagers and this lends a sense of urgency to Christian Graham’s Boys Cry. The play, a 50-minute monologue performed here by the writer himself, gives subtle insights into the mind of a 17-year-old disturbed by a traumatic event.
Mark, a student living in South London, is mugged in the street. He is not harmed physically and he loses no possessions of great value, but he sees the attack as a challenge to his masculinity, defined largely through gender stereotyping. He retreats into the fantasy worlds of video games while struggling to regain his foothold in normal college life, all the time confronted by peer pressure and his own perceived failure.
The writer suggests that telling his story to an anonymous audience is a cathartic experience for Mark, who feels compelled to stifle his true feelings, even to his intuitively sympathetic mother. His father is a role model who is unable to open out and thereby confirms the definitions of masculinity found in society as a whole.
Graham’s imposing, muscular build emphasises the play’s point that external appearance can disguise internal turmoil. However, the actor’s physique and his apparent age do not help him to convey the vulnerability and naivety of the Mark of whom he is speaking in the first person. Graham’s Mark would seem likely to be very low on any list of potential mugging victims. These strains on credibility collectively lessen the play’s emotional impact.
Director Ebenezer Bamgboye’s energised production sees Graham pacing around the stage like a caged lion. Lighting, designed by Matthew Carnazza, is particularly effective in stressing Mark’s isolation by picking him out starkly against the backdrop of a darkened stage.
Boys cry, of course they do, but this play would live longer in the memory if the audience could be more moved to tears too.
Performance date: 16 September 2021
The Beast's Pen 