Royal
Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
Four
stars
Things
have probably changed in the American limbo-land that inspired David Greig’s
sprawling search for truth since it was first staged by the Tron Theatre at the
Edinburgh International Festival sixteen years ago. However San Diego’s physical
landscape worked out, one suspects the collective existential crisis portrayed
by the play’s cabin-load of lost souls looking for somewhere safe to land hasn’t
got much better.
No
matter, because there is hope in Mark Thomson’s revival, performed here by final
year BA Acting students, who themselves are about to spread their wings and
move into scarier climes. For one thing, at least Greig is still with us,
despite writing himself into his own play as a geeky tourist and then bumping
himself off in a moment that sees the criss-crossing narrative strands
fleetingly converge.
Moving
at the pace of a Wim Wenders travelogue and just as fascinated with America,
the play’s set of estranged secular rituals sees everyone onstage struggle to
believe in both themselves and something beyond. Thomson’s cast of eleven grab
hold of the play’s complex set of ideas with an intelligent relish as they move
through the open doors of designer Gilly Slater’s strip-lit constructions.
Among
a roll-call of fine performances, Bailey Newsome’s David Greig is a Harry
Potterish swot, Caleb Hughes a Pilot with no direction and Felixe Forde a
quietly determined Daniel, the Nigerian runaway in search of his errant mother
who may or may not have sung backing vocals on Band of the Run by Wings. Most
moving of all is the relationship between Sorcha Kennedy’s Laura and Rowan
Smith’s David, so by the end you’re willing them to survive.
In a
global village where conformity is signalled by an endless line of women named
Amy, and everyday tragedies are worth much more than disaster movies, Greig’s
play shows how travel can alienate as much as broaden the mind. The result is a
painful but ultimately optimistic flesh and blood dreamscape of the lengths we’ll
sometimes go to in order to remind ourselves we’re alive.
The Herald, May 30th 2019
Ends
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