Review: Jade City, Bunker Theatre - an interesting verbal boxing bout that ends up on the ropes.
07/09/2019
In the confined space of the boxing ring and armed with just a couple of low bar stools Calvert and Quinn make the dialogue a dynamic sparring match.
Alice Malseed's play starts with Monty (Barry Calvert) and Sas (Brendan Quinn) standing in the audience either side of the stage which has a boxing ring at its centre.
It's the only time you'll see them outside the ring, the Belfast men talk of their childhood, bikes they coveted, japes and fun - champion times before life's battles became more challenging.
As they move into the ring they are older and a fight has begun, for freedom, for a place in the world and a simple happiness of cans of Harp.
Neither can hold down a job or get girlfriends. Instead, they escape into their imagination, inventing parallel lives that are a mixture of heroic ambition (revolutionaries in Cuba), fantasy (seagulls) and simple and uncomplicated (bin men).
They have their 'game' and the pub where they analyse the customers but the bond of friendship is frayed.
Something happened with Katie that has driven a wedge between them. What happened is revealed in devastating pieces.
Malseed's script is a skilled and interesting mixture of witty, sharp Belfast vernacular and grim, urban poetry - captions on a screen at the back of the stage mean you don't miss a word.
In the confined space of the boxing ring and armed with just a couple of low bar stools Calvert and Quinn make the dialogue a dynamic sparring match.
However, the building tension and turmoil don't lead to the expected big confrontation which makes it feel a little directionless.
There is an escape for Sas and Monty, two very different paths which serve to demonstrate both the power and fragility of the human experience.
Jade City touches on serious subjects - mental health and sexual assault but it is the yearning for something different and the inability to enact change which carries the most weight.
It is 60 minutes and you can see it at the Bunker Theatre until September 21. I'm giving it three and a half stars.
You might like to read:
Interview: Director Harry Mackrill on his new play and working on Angels in America.
Review: Hansard, National Theatre - witty and devastating.
From the archive: My review of Fleabag when it was still a fringe play upstairs at the Soho Theatre.