DramaLondonReview

Ballistic – King’s Head Theatre, London

Writer: Alex Packer

Director: Anna Marsland

Reviewer: Scott Matthewman

The game of Tetris, as described by actor Mark Conway in this one-person show, involves a load of blocks dropping together – unless holes start building up, and things get too much, and then everything explodes.

Conway’s character is much the same. Joining him as a sexually naïve, furtive 12-year-old, Alex Packer’s script portrays an amusing character who struggles to make sense of sexual development. Conway is an engaging character, infusing his monologue with vivid portrayals of the various characters he interacts with.

At every turn, though, unfortunate events in Conway’s character’s life – from his parents’ divorce to his best friend’s seeming betrayal by copping off with a German exchange student – cause him to withdraw. A fresh start at university seems to bode well, when it seems that he is to lose his virginity to a full-on, if extremely drunk, fellow fresher.

But a series of abject humiliations force further dark changes in his character, causing him to find refuge online – from violent gaming to the depths of websites where similarly disaffected young men encourage each other to believe that others are to blame for their feelings of despair – and the belief that desperate, violent action is necessary.

Much has been made by the production’s publicity materials of how Packer’s script was inspired by a particular case of a college shooting in the US. Recent events in Florida cannot help but come to mind as one watches Conway effectively portraying a character who takes extreme, violent actions in order to be noticed.

The shift from light comedy to creeping dread is gradual, the holes in Conway’s psyche at first barely noticeable until the blocks start falling into place ever quicker. As events take a murderous turn, Packer’s script forces us to, if not sympathise, at least empathise with the sort of damaged soul who could resort to mindless butchery as a desperate form of attention-seeking.

And much as the most recent high school shooting in America seems to finally be shifting the dial in the country’s gun control debate, Packer expertly details all the other negative elements of society to which we turn a blind eye, from bullying to a coyness about discussing teenage sexuality.

None are, either alone or together, justification for mass slaughter: but vulnerable young men like Conway’s character do not arrive at their final actions in a single step. Focussing solely on the equipment used, Packer suggests, misses the hardest and most essential part of the gun violence problem that needs fixing: ourselves.

Continues until 17 March. | Image: Tom Packer

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A vivid portrayal

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