Two catholic lads share a cigarette and boyish chat when they observe a female teacher through a crack in the basement wall performing a natural bodily function. The boys are sent wild with untapped sexual energy and frustration. Through episodic scene structure we soon realise the depth of their confusion about male-female-male-male-female sic relationships and they set out to satisfy their misplaced and mutually inflated passions. Not wanting to give too much away, the boys find themselves self-imprisoned in the basement for fear of retribution. In a mood and manipulation not dissimilar to Misery, Fish (Kevin Trainor) and Leto (Alex Waldmann) sacrifice their youth through mind games and status reversal. God, and his ever-seeing eye, is never far away from their reasoning and, in the end, they bare witness with devastating results to the over fertile imagination of the young.
This play sits comfortably within the Kane and Ravenhill canons of In-Yer-Face Theatre. It has the abstraction and surrealism of Blasted and the human grit of Shopping and Fucking. The power of the piece comes from superb acting, directed within a frame of realism. The contradictions are obvious, but it really does work on every single level.
Within a realistic set designed by Belle Mundy some twenty scenes are fused together with suggestive and subtle lighting by Phil Hewitt that are underscored by a haunting soundscape design by Neil McArthur and sung by Claire Moore. In this soundscape, the surreal elements of the play are enforced by an Artaudian transfiguration in what begins as something jolly, as the boys play truant, to distortion and aggression, with physical and vocal abuse. Mr Artaud would have been delighted.
Alex Waldmann and Kevin Trainor both graduated from LAMDA and RADA (respectively) this year. Their ease, commitment, energy and verve made this production engaging, funny, ever-so slightly burlesque at times, and ultimately heart achingly tragic. In-Yer-Face theatre exists for an audience when there is no escape and the action is literally in your face. Waldmann and Trainor will, hopefully be in our faces for years to come. I predict they are names to watch and we will see a lot more of them in the future.
Paul Higgins, the Artistic Director at Theatre 503, has created a piece of theatre from Buenos Aires, translated by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio, that will be a talking point for all who sees it. It will split the room on opinion in the most exiting way possible. I would remind those who still ruminate about Sarah Kane’s Blasted, that it was the least seen and most talked about play of the 90s. To make sure you can talk about this play make sure you see it before it closes. It will change you. It will challenge you. And, yes, it will AFFECT you - in the only way live theatre can affect a person. Wow, what a night out at the Theatre 503.
Gene David Kirk
