Writer: Gabriel Phelan
Director: Ruby Phelan
What does modern masculinity look like and how can one man break the cycle of expectation and social influence? Gabriel Phelan’s 30-minute play, showing at the Hen & Chickens Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe, combines dramatic scenes, narrative and dance in an exploration of friendship, male violence and alcoholism to understand the characteristics and roots of performative masculinity as Glass Boy’s world presses in on him.
The unnamed boy feels controlled, physically moved from place to place by some unseen force while a poisonous voice in his head pushes him to behave exactly as he is expected to. On a boys’ trip to Zante, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with pack leader Ryan and one fateful night, it all comes tumbling down.
Phelan’s short play is essentially a patchwork of stories, memories and musings on manliness that coalesce around the unnamed central character. There is no single or obviously chronological plotline as such, only the onset of a mental health crisis born out of the individual’s desire to break away from himself and to develop. That he actively recognises the malign influences of other men is interesting, and while he is pressured, even actively coerced to behave just like them, there is some consciousness in Phelan’s character that his friends, father and ancestors have not necessarily provided the right template for being a man.
Phelan’s storytelling is the most enjoyable aspect of Glass Boy, taking the audience to a vivid football match where the innate violence of his father and the boy’s own tendency to aggression emerges. Late, the brilliantly recreated lads’ holiday to Zante managed by the controlling Jake in which our hero struggles to live by the code, is fascinatingly unfolded. When disappointment strikes, the volume and rate of alcohol consumption becomes his alarming but temporary comfort.
Phelan also uses dance as a narrative device, choreographed sequences that imply the boy’s willpower as he uses vigorous exercise and mindfulness to project a different, better image of himself. But dance also signifies the control exerted over him by these unseen internal and external forces, while pre-recorded voiceover manifests the conversation in his head as a conscience, devil or social expectation.
At only 30-minutes, Glass Boy is quite brief and culminates in an explosive sequence that arrives too rapidly and becomes too large too quickly. There is space here to expand the audience’s knowledge of the boy, to flesh out the stories of his childhood and seemingly complex but pivotal relationship with his father, as well as perhaps presenting alternative models of masculinity that could be adopted. There is huge potential here and Phelan’s play could be something very special, because knowing you need to break free of social expectation and inculcated values is one thing, what you become instead remains to be seen.
Runs until 28 August 2022
The Camden Fringe runs from 1-28 August 2022
