Bones – Park Theatre, London

Writer: Lewis Aaron Wood

Director: Daniel Blake

There is a cumulative pressure on sports players to perform even when it is the last thing that they want to do. All the investment in training and tactics means that when the big games come they are expected to deliver. Lewis Aaron Wood’s new play Bones dramatises some exciting movement sequences inspired by the scrum, ruck and line-out that create an impressive energy in the Park Theatre’s smaller space, but this exploration of mental health in sport struggles to find a similar narrative and character drive.

Scoring the winning try takes Ed’s amateur team to the semi-finals of their local competition but he doesn’t feel like celebrating. As the grind of training and the expectation to play start to build, Ed begins to detach himself from his teammates who soon notice a change in him. When he asks captain Charlie for a favour, Ed’s inability to cope becomes a problem for them all.

Director Daniel Blake has created some athletic movement sequences that punctuate this 75-minute drama and allow the four-strong cast to demonstrate their rugby skills. And they don’t hold back; powerful and intense exchanges are also perfectly controlled as they crash into one another, lift their colleagues to receive an imaginary line-out and throw themselves around in tackles and falls but without tumbling into the audience sitting in close proximity.

But Wood’s drama is less assured and isn’t always certain what its overall game plan is going to be. The subject matter is illuminating and a valuable subject for drama, particularly the discussion of possible depression (although the word is never used) and the tendencies to self-harm that emerge from Ed’s struggle. But the struggles themselves are a little flat, spoken about but never fully realised or investigated, the link to parental grief referenced but not explored.

And it makes Bones a little repetitive, the audience is given information in Ed’s monologues about his emotional state and reluctance to play long before other characters catch up in dramatic scenes. The discussions of cause and effect become rather circular as a result in a story that has a singular plotline and limited character development with motivation often a little muddled as Charlie and fellow player Will trade personalities two-thirds of the way through the drama before both deciding to support their friend.

Ed played by Ronan Cullen progresses very little, his uncertainty about rugby is the same at the end of the play as at the beginning. Cullen captures the interior pain of his character and the disassociation with his teammates, but Wood never really drills into the reasons why this happens or the catharsis that playing rugby gives him. Samuel Hoult’s Charlie is initially a supportive presence, but his sudden irritation needs greater explanation while Ainsley Fannen’s Will is boorishly one-note throughout. Some explanation of what is at stake for Charlie and Will would help to make sense of Ed’s isolation as well as the connection that these men have to one another.

It is really interesting to see more sports plays being produced and the topic of male mental health under the expectation to succeed in a team game is full of dramatic potential. Bones has some interesting things to say about the routine of playing and the difficulties that men have in reaching out to one another, but it also becomes distracted from its thoughts about class and status within the game, the unhealthy culture that surrounds the players who drink and smoke after matches and the possibility of turning professional. There is real potential in this story but it needs to play a stronger starting line-up.

Runs until 22 July 2023