S-27 To 4 July.

London.

S-27
by Sarah Grochala.

Finborough Theatre above Finborough Road Brasserie 118 Finborough Road SW10 9ED To 4 July 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat & Sun 3pm.
Runs 1hr 5min No interval.

TICKETS: 0844 847 1652 (24hr no booking fee).
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk 9reduced full-price tickets online).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 June.

Different angle reveals nothing new.
It’s political, it’s based on the work of Nhem En, a photographer at the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison. And it’s won Amnesty International’s Protect the Human Playwriting competition. So who am I to complain?

Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge weren’t a lot to argue with – they’d kill you at the sight of a pencil in your pocket (literate people tend to think for themselves, decided the dictatorship, and took no chances). But the play, presumably, wasn’t written amidst the terrifying circumstances of its original subject, who becomes the photographer May. In an old school building she takes shots of prisoners before sending them through a door that’s not the route to living happily ever after – or to living after very much at all.

The trouble is, the most eloquent moment comes at the start as a sunken-headed, terrified child just about manages to mumble that he wants his mother. May’s words of comfort and the handkerchief she gives him are a type of humanity, but only within the inevitable process.

For the rest - yes, it’s true to the situation. But it’s also very predictable. The appeal for help met by May’s deaf ears. Her inability to carry on when a former lover appears. The young assistant too ready to take over, even if ill-equipped to take a photo – tyrannies demand loyalty not skill.

The title refers to a tag each prisoner wears; presumably a condemnation to death or severe imprisonment. It’s an awkward device, barely visible beyond the front row or two. More seriously, the play’s written in the edgy, terse style political playwrights popularised in the sixties and early seventies. The sex, when it comes, is stereotypically desperate.

This play may have won an award for saying duly humanitarian things. It can hardly be praised for giving any new insight into political repression nor for depth or originality, beyond the basic image of the photographer clicking people’s lives away. Even that is subsumed in the old issue of personal feelings intruding into political processes. It is, however, well-acted and may make more impact on audience-members new to political drama.

May: Pippa Nixon.
Boy/Girl: Kate Ward.
Man: Jack Pierce.June: Brooke Kinsella.
Mother/Cousin: Amelia Saberwal.
Col: Tom Reed.

Director: Stephen Keyworth.
Designer: Olivia Altaras.
Lighting: Gary Bowman,
Assistant director: Eleanor Rhode.

2009-07-02 12:47:06