Writer: Suzan-Lori Parks
Director: Femi Elufowoju Jr.
Suzan-Lori Parks’ play has three characters. They are called Vet, Buddy, and Grace. There may be some nominative determinism operating here.
Vet (Peter de Jersey) comes back from an unspecified combat zone with nothing. His son Buddy (Daniel Francis-Swaby) has, ironically, returned from a more recent unspecified combat zone with a Bronze Star. This is a source of resentment to Vet. Most things are a source of resentment to Vet who is a Border Patrol Agent. Vet believes firmly in the efficacy of the wall and in its function of dividing good people from bad, clearly and unambiguously.
He thinks there should be walls everywhere. They would be handy domestic additions, setting apart people with good behaviour from people with bad. There is more irony at work here, when the audience recognises (about two minutes in) that Vet thinks he’s on the good side. Vet has no redeeming features. That is probably the big political takeaway, that someone who believes in the power and necessity of a wall on the USA’s southern border isn’t very nice.
Buddy is a confused veteran. He wants a job and asks Vet to help him become a Border Patrolman like his daddy. His daddy turns him down flat. Buddy changes his name to Snake and starts vlogging his intention to blow stuff up, incidentally turning a whole side of the Arcola’s audience into his cult followers. No one seems to mind, maybe there are more potential Timothy McVeighs in Dalston than was previously recognised.
Grace (Ellena Vincent) is a waitress at a diner. Grace is Vet’s second wife, after the disappearance of wife number one, Buddy’s mum. Grace finds the good in everyone. Grace has a keen eye for silver linings, and clips optimistic stories from discarded newspapers and pastes them into a notebook, the Book of Grace. She reveals that sometimes she invents happy endings to stories that are otherwise insufficiently upbeat. This may have significance later in the play.
The three actors work so hard. They are desperate to turn the zig-zag character arcs into something coherent. They try so hard not to be one-note, but they are stuck with angry and resentful or optimistic with a fixed smile. Buddy/Snake has many notes, sometimes all played at the same time. What he doesn’t have is coherence or authenticity.
There is a big predictable event, there is a lot of deeply portentous red lighting to go with the slinky red dress Buddy buys his young step-mum, and there is an awful lot of terribly ineffective clothes pressing that highlights the presence of an iron as two unkempt soldiers go off to a military event in mismatched jackets and trousers and badly knotted ties. The play finishes with a twist that may be a happy ending. Sort of. Maybe.
Runs until 8 June 2024
