PROBLEM CHILD. To 8 November.
London
PROBLEM CHILD
by George F Walker
New End Theatre To 8 November 2003
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3.30pm
Runs 1hr 5min No interval
TICKETS: 020 7794 0022
www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 19 October
Briefly visited lives on the edge.A problem child is different from a problem play: one causes problems, the other discusses them. And, in that sense, Canadian George F Walker's drama isn't a problem play: it's focussed on characters rather than an issue.
The child's never seen. Social-worker Helen (coolly immaculate Lydia Parker, professionally glazen even after some very rough treatment) says he's happy in his foster home. RJ and Denise are neither happy nor at home. Their shabby motel room with its unconvincing wall-sized picture of the kind of Bahaman haven they're never likely to know, is presided over by Phillie, keen to keep a job he's managed to obtain by staying sober on Wednesdays, vacuuming day. It's that kind of place; that kind of life.
At first, RJ seems the one lost in a fantasy world of reality' TV. The sub-Springer show he's glued to evokes his protests of unfair treatment of participants. He has a point though, eventually becoming unofficial consultant to the programme producers.
Trevor White gives RJ a suitably contained intensity. Eyes stare in moral concentration at the TV, but he's getting a lifestyle together to impress the Social people while trying to calm his partner, part rehabbed prostitute/addict who's living-out her own Springer-style hell-on-earth.
Samantha Coughlan's Denise is the unpredictable one, for whom violence (she's the girl with the gun) is natural when it's to restore her child to her. While the play's intense, a level of absurdity lurks underfoot, near enough to give a comic though rarely humorous edge. Violence happens, rather than being caused. The gunshot goes nowhere, the blood springs out of accidents.
Phillie, as anyone seeing Kenneth Jay's bear-bodied, mouse-minded character would realise, is not a man to recover the child. He sets out to help Denise, but is the softest-hearted would-be kidnapper outside cartoonland. The child remains unseen, the problem unresolved.
What we have is a sympathetic view of lives under pressure and over-stretched. Sam Shepard-like minds, not seeing beyond immediate emotional needs. Long-term planning becomes ridiculous, and in such an accidental world, the unexpected is all that ever comes about.
It's a shame Walker resorts to a closing round-up monologue to audience, which seems at odds with Denise's in-the-moment mind to that point. Otherwise, Josie Le Grice's aptly-pitched production catches this odd but vivid world with growing conviction.
RJ: Trevor White
Denise: Samantha Coughlan
Phillie: Kenneth Jay
Helen: Lydia Parker
Director: Josie Le Grice
Designer: Janet Bird
Lighting: Mark Howland
Sound: Yuval Havkin
2003-10-23 10:12:34