This absorbing drama written by Jesus College student Matthew Parvin had its first outing in the Turl Street Arts Festival last term and is now coming to the Burton Taylor with an all new cast. I say ‘cast’: there are only two actors in this intimate hour long play, but thankfully their performances are sufficiently strong and distinctive to propel the play forward with panache.
Jeremy Neumark Jones shows great range and explosive energy whilst Sam Smith gives an understated and nuanced performance. They bounce off each other to make the drama compellingly unpredictable. The play explores some rather ‘big ideas’, some rather ‘dark thoughts’, some rather enormous ‘human condition’-shaped elephants in the room, but what else would you expect from a night of student drama at the Burton Taylor? I would be quite taken aback to see a play there that does not toy with suicide, highlight the futility of our banal existence and reference both cancer and the other ‘c-word’.
The play revolves solely around the interaction between vicar/therapist Regis (Sam Smith) and troubled student Jeremy (Jeremy Neumark Jones). There are five short acts, each corresponding to a session between these two intriguing characters as their quite fractious and combustible relationship continues to develop. Whilst the premise and the plot could seem a bit arch and over-engineered, the quality of the dialogue and the intensity of the performances more than compensate for this and the result is authentic and watchable. At times, Jeremy comes out with such perfectly formulated lines and intelligently voiced ideas that the dialogue risks becoming a little over-written or contrived and the otherwise ultra-realistic tone of the play comes under threat, but the overall quality of both the writing and the acting wins over and the play proves convincing, engaging and thought-provoking.
3.5 STARS
