TWO TRACKS AND TEXT ME. To 1 November.

Leeds

TWO TRACKS AND TEXT ME
by Sol B River

Courtyard Theatre West Yorkshire Playhouse To 1 November 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu 2pm & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval

Nice try, but it doesn't add up as drama.Lots of cred-points to West Yorkshire Playhouse for a new play reflecting British society's ethnic diversity, with a crime plot touching on an important social issue, geared to young audiences and incorporating e-communication in story and production. What it shows is that all the right ingredients don't add up to a decent dramatic meal if there's no-one with the skill the dramatic instinct to get them cooked.

Ethnic diversity is the one thing that fully works it's good to see a play where Black British people are central but without suggesting the action we're shown is anything other than a slice of life cut from everyday society. And the youth appeal's there in the opening video shots introducing characters, with mobile phones wheeling onscreen while they're ringing in characters' pockets.

But these people are yoked unconvincingly together. We find three male friends on a regular night in with the video-games, yet, despite the informal chat of people who know each other, we're expected to believe one of them's kept his job plot-important secret.

They link to a couple of young women, but the stressed relationships never stretch beyond the lines in which they're expressed. One's a dub poet, but her club performance is so unhelpfully staged and dispiritedly acted it's hard to imagine a hyped-up nightlife audience keeping quiet throughout.

The issue child abuse is stark and takes us to White society. Zoe Thornes catches the lonely desperation, the mix of defiance and compliance in a 12-year old pandered to men by her own father. The murky presentation achieves a sense of horrid secrecy and the distance the friends have to travel to find the victim they've accidentally contacted through misdialled texting.

But it may just be to keep the father's identity from us uselessly, as it's predictable. We have to believe too a policeman would walk into this girl's bedroom alone, without involving a female colleague or social services, leaving the youngster vulnerable for some time to come.

No, it won't do. The dialogue stays firmly as author making points; there's little sense of living people or real life.

Beeves: David Carr
Shun: David Webber
Hoe: Neil Reidman
Yazza: Troy Titus-Adams
Kat: Daisy Beaumont
Louise: Zoe Thorne
Father: Ian Mercer

Director: Joe Williams
Associate director: Sol B River
Designer: Emma Williams
Lighting: Stephen Sinclair
Sound/Video: Mic Pool
Choreographers: Ayo Jones, Sharon Watson
Voice: Susan Stern

2003-10-28 09:57:07