FLIGHT PATH. To 10 November.
London/Tour
FLIGHT PATH
by David Watson
Bush Theatre To 6 October.
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 3pm.
Audio-described 1 Oct.
BSL Signed 22 Sept 3pm
Post-show discussion 26 Sept.
then Tour by Out of Joint Theatre Company to 10 November 2007.
Runs 1hr 45min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 7610 4224.
www.bushtheatre.co.uk (London).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 September.
Pains of teenage youth intricately dissected.
At 18, Jonathan hasn’t found himself. In fact, he’s managing to lose himself even further. Absentee dad merely seems awkward when they meet. Mother grows impatient; Joe, a friend from primary school days, has moved into crime, and Jonathan’s older brother Daniel has Downs Syndrome, remaining a responsibility.
The only person to calm Jonathan’s purposeless rage, which points all ways but seems essentially directed inwards, is the one he didn’t know at the play’s start, Joe’s girlfriend Lauren. The tentative friendship that grows between them is among the finest things in a play that works through implication rather than overt statement. Lauren’s street-wise yet talks confidently on first-name terms with Jonathan’s social-worker mother. A tough-and-tender 17, she’s given a lithe lightness by Ashley Madekwe.
It contrasts Susan’s more fraught responses, her surface friendliness weighted with concern for her son or something less-than-enchantment with the confident Lauren. But the younger generation are the play’s heart; unsurprisingly, as the author was one himself till a couple of years ago.
The action’s most alive in their morphing relationships, the clash and contrast of character. The ending, where everything in the garden – or, at least allotment – is lovely - or at least reaches a resolution, doesn’t convince as angst and anger are suddenly replaced by laughter and smiles.
Until then friendships, with their contrasts of the tense and the laid-back, and family tensions all ring true as emerging from the chaos people make of life. David Watson shows enough of Jonathan’s nature and family to make both contribute to his desire to fall-in with the ways and speech-patterns of urban youth.
And Watson leaves a gap between what we see of Jonathan and the impact of his life on his A-level results, something which seems inevitable from his academic father’s false heartiness over Jonathan’s exams in the opening scene.
Naomi Jones’s detailed production has fine performances particularly from Madekwe, Jason Maza as the intense Joe, who knows he has to get what he wants by determination and struggle, Scott Swadkins as the vulnerable Daniel and especially Gary Crankson’s Jonathan, veering rudderless between the others.
Sean: Will Knightley.
Jonathan: Gary Crankson.
Daniel: Scott Swadkins.
Joe: Jason Maza.
Lauren: Ashley Madekwe.
Susan: Mossie Smith.
Director: Naomi Jones.
Designer: Polly Sullivan.
Lighting: Natasha Chivers.
Sound: Carolyn Downing.
Fight director: Paul Benzing.
2007-09-24 02:20:11