The Box/Quien Es?/Calling

Published Monday 9 October 2006 at 16:35 by David Simmons

The second joinedupwriters festival kicked off with David Whitney’s “Man” lying face down in a square pool of light, which comes to represent the box of the title. Mark Brown’s monologue is punctuated only by offstage voices, ordering “stay inside the box!” or “step back!”. This is fairly smart writing with a deft comic touch and Whitney has the charisma to sustain interest. He moves well from the haze of a hangover to amused bewilderment and finally anger as the reality of his situation dawns.

Why is he in the box? Why must he stay? Who put him there? These questions remain unanswered. Whether the box is a social or personal construct is open to interpretation. Certainly the voices are forceful enough to keep him there initially but their power is only through suggestion. There are no walls. He unloads a short lifetime of petty guilt - from relieving himself in a restaurant fish tank to sleeping with his girlfriend’s sister - but is ultimately answering only to himself and it is he who holds the key to his own emancipation.

Brown isn’t boxing particularly cleverly here with his nod to an existential, thirtysomething angst but the whole is diverting enough.

The second of this opening trinity of plays, Quien Es? [Who’s there?] by Alan McNaboe, is further disorientating and brings to mind Auden’s The Unknown Citizen. Charles Neville plays Victor Brel, a man who has just been delivered the terrible news - we assume - of his imminent death. Held in a non-descript waiting room, he is at the mercy of a faceless organisation represented by Otto (Robert Lockhart). Otto is a bureaucrat and offers no explanation and certainly no salvation. Victor’s life is reduced to the sharp downward trajectory of a graph and his decisions determined by brochures and forms.

NcNaboe’s play echoes with similar music to that of Brown’s Box but is more experimental in its structure. The playwright juggles with timeframes - there is the suggestion of a passage of 30 years having passed - and settings. Most confusing of all is the voice of Pat Garrett that is heard as Victor lies prone in a park having had his head kicked in. Perhaps Garrett represents the same law that stalks the shadows throughout the play but he seems a square piece of jigsaw in a circular puzzle. Innovation is one thing but this ends up being just a little bit messy, although both parts are acted very well with Lockhart tackling a variety of personae.

Jenny Harold and Oscar Ward are two inmates of a psychiatric hospital in a distinct change of style and pace following the interval. The realism of Calling jars initially and asks different questions of the audience. Both actors take a short while to convince but as the play gains momentum, a strength in writing comes through and the piece is up and running.

Deborah Espect demonstrates a good ear for laughs and delivers a dark comedy with a killer twist. The actors warm to their parts and Ward does well with the difficult role of a schizophrenic, while Matt Prendergast is convincing as the new inmate harbouring a chilling agenda. A well-worked end-piece to a promising curtains-up for the festival.