Writer: Naomi Wallace
Director: Sarah Frankcom
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How easily the careless follies of exuberant youth can turn into regret and disappointment in later life. American born writer Naomi Wallace expands on this theme in her play, receiving its UK premiere here, and also examines the bonds of friendship and family, testing the strength of one against the other.
Set in Kentucky, the play begins in 1977. Teenager Acton (Stanley Morgan) and two of his friends, Frayne (Charlie Beck) and Hoke (Alfie Jones), form a club, meeting in the basement of his family home in the poorer part of town. Acton’s father is dead, following a fall from a high rise building, leaving his mother as the struggling breadwinner and his big sister, 17-year-old Jude, becomes de facto family head.
In alternating scenes, the play leaps forward to 1991, when the characters reunite, apart from Acton, who is missing. Shannon Tarbet as the young Jude is vibrant and controlling, extracting power from her position as the outsider. 14 years later, Jasmine Blackborow’s Jude is bitter and resentful, haunted by breaches of trust and loss, as she confronts Frayne (Douggie McMeekin) and Hoke (Tom Lewis) in a quest to uncover the truth of past events.
The storytelling is clear and compelling, but perhaps Wallace allows the focus to drift too much in the direction of Jude, leaving the male characters less well rounded and, crucially, only sketching in the details of Acton’s fate. The boys require each other to make significant personal sacrifices as demonstrations of commitment to their club and it is these actions which are to have lingering consequences, but, with the characters thinly drawn, the sacrifices made strain credibility.
Director Sarah Frankcom stages the play without sets, sharing the writer’s focus on Jude. The male bonding is, possibly, judged too much from a female perspective, but there is no questioning the depth of sibling devotion as Jude and Acton roll down the sloping stage, imagining the thoughts of their father when he was flying through the air to his death. Tarbet and Morgan make an endearing pair, grasping at the last straws of youthful innocence before adulthood encroaches on their lives.
The story is almost complete by the interval, leaving a gloomy second act of reflection and recrimination. This is not exactly a breach of promise, but it brings a disappointing climax to what is, for the most part, an unusual and gripping drama.
Performance date: 12 May 2022
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