Brunton Theatre,
Musselburgh
3 stars
At first glance,
Perth-born writer Ben Tagoe's new play for Leeds-based veterans Red
Ladder looks like the sort of timely dissection of financial
corruption that fuelled the likes of Lucy Prebble's hit, Enron. Rod
Dixon's production opens with naïve computer whiz-kid Noel being
courted by wheeler-dealer Ray to make some easy cash by investing
other people's money in illegal ventures without them knowing. When
he's found out, Noel takes the rap while Ray slithers his way towards
the next fall guy.
We next see Noel in a
prison cell, forced to share with bully boy Michael and father figure
Emmanuel. Noel may be incarcerated, but he finds himself caught up in
the same cycle as before, co-opted into a black economy not of his
making until he finally sells his soul in order to survive.
While there are shades
here of David Mamet's early play, Edmond, which also ends in a prison
cell, it's not difficult to see Tagoe's point, that corporate
capitalism can corrupt both in glossy office spaces and behind bars.
As valid and pertinent as this is, it's all slightly awkward and
overloaded in the telling, with the early office scenes in particular
never quite ringing true.
Things work much better
in the prison scenes, and you can't help but feel genuinely scared
for Shaun Cowlishaw's Noel as he's brutalised by William Fox's
Michael. What isn't clear in all this, however, is who exactly the
psychopath here actually is. Noel, after all is just one more victim
of a system he can't help be warped by. It's those who set the agenda
who are really deranged.
The Herald, April 26th 2013
ends
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