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Lifeboat Theatre in association with Widsith present S - 27
by Sarah Grochala
Directed by Stephen Keyworth
Finborough Theatre
9 June - 4 July
A review by Alexandra Carey for EXTRA! EXTRA!
S-27 is the winner of Amnesty International’s first Protect - The Human Playwriting Competition and it is certainly a hard-hitting and thought provoking sixty five minutes of theatre. The play is inspired by the work of photographer Nhem En who photographed the inmates of Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia under the rule of the Khmer Rouge, and draws on both prison records and interviews. At the centre of the drama is May - a young idealist who is allegedly prepared to sacrifice anything for the fictional regime of the play. Having been trained as a prison photographer, we follow her through a series of snapshot scenes depicting different encounters with prisoners which will eventually shake her unflinching commitment to ‘them’. Each of these scenes shows us a crisis moment of some sort for May and, over the course of the play, they converge to give us a fuller picture of her journey and the world she inhabits. So the structure of the play itself is like an exhibition of photos, and cleverly plays with this idea - giving us just enough information to understand its implications, but keeping us grasping for more and a little disorientated by the fast flow of images. The obvious risks of such a structure could be a lack of continuity across the play and a tendency towards stereotyping in the characters. The constant presence of the photographer May and her apprentice June, combined with well judged decisions in the lighting and sound between scenes, hold the play together well as a whole and allow us to engage fully with these characters over time; this compensates for the lack of depth and slight inconsistencies in some of the supporting characters. This play is less about what these various other people do or are - they are six different faces with different connotations for, and effects on May and could probably have been a different six - it is about what they do to May. So it is fortunate that Pippa Nixon gives a strong performance as May with a measured progression through the scenes and the believable disintegration of her belief in the regime. Again, the nature of the play structure is such that it does not lend itself to a gradual change in state of mind - it is pitched at very specific moments over time and these exact changes in pitch will perhaps be refined over the run - but the feel of cumulative effect is strong and very striking to watch. Pippa is ably supported throughout by Brooke Kinsella as the mouthy, brash and, as it turns out, remarkably savvy June. The two create a great image of contrasting reactions to crisis, and differing breeds of survival instinct. June’s claim at the end of the play that ‘we could have been mates’ resonates back through each of the carefully selected scenes - this is really perhaps a play about our similarities, our humanity, when it comes down to it. The big difference between these two women is that May cannot, in the end, stop her emotions from getting in the way of her self-preservation; ‘My heart pulled my head’ she says. I left the theatre wondering which I would be - May or June - and certainly it’s not as easy to see a right and a wrong choice as I would have liked. Neither character is without blame in this story full of shadows and implication. S-27 is not an easy play to watch. Director Stephen Keyworth has created a fast, passionate, intense and emotionally draining piece of theatre; at every moment the stakes are as high as they can be - it’s a play about life and death. It is not neat or clean - it’s in your face, erratic, and at times uncomfortable. But, to be honest, what else should a play set against a backdrop of genocide and tyranny be? This seems to be the ideal play to represent Amnesty International and to disturb London theatre audiences a little. I must admit to knowing very little about Cambodia in particular, though I shall certainly be finding out more, but this is, much more generally, a play about the cost of survival under oppression. It is a reminder we would all do well to heed, simply, that freedom is incredibly important. It’s no bad thing to encourage ourselves and each other to consider actively the choices that many people in our world today have to make. To disturb us - in the words of Francis Drake - ‘when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore’; when we don’t face the problems ourselves, and so fail to act; or when we don’t look at the problems, and so forget that they exist.
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED Tuesday, 9 June – Saturday, 4 July 2009 Tuesday to Saturday Evenings at 7.30pm. Sunday Matinees at 3.00pm. Saturday Matinees at 3.00pm (from 20 June). Tickets £13, £9 concessions, except Tuesday Evenings £9 all seats, and Saturday evenings £13 all seats. Box office: 0844 847 1652/ book online at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
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