Writer: Alecky Blythe
Director: Daniel Evans
Alecky Blythe’s new play, Our Generation, is a state of the teenage nation verbatim piece that has been five years in the making, following a group of secondary-school pupils through some of the most formative experiences of their lives. A co-production between the National Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre where the play will transfer after its Dorfman run, spending over three and half hours with 12 teenagers is quite an education.
Organised both thematically and using a rough chronology that takes the subjects from the election of Donald Trump and Brexit through GCSE preparation and results to leaving for university and pandemic restrictions, the ‘collectors’ of Our Generation spent years interviewing teenagers from all over the UK, working on behalf of and with Blythe to chart an extraordinary period of social and personal change that succinctly captures and distils the breadth of their lives and experiences.
The result is a fascinating patchwork of perspectives that adds real dimension to what is often a blanket impression of young people. There are phones and an obsession with documenting their lives online, but there are also universal concerns about exam results, their future careers, parental expectations and navigating school days. Most of part one – running at around 90 minutes – does this kind of scene-setting with individuals coming forward to speak, mixed with dramatic scenes involving multiple characters as parents, siblings or friends of the protagonists.
Part two, running at a little over an hour, follows the older group through college marked by a costume change from school unform into casual clothes, and has a greater focus on the transition to adulthood as they experience crises in personal relationship and self-identity. Body confidence and peer pressure are a notable feature. Blythe has made us care about these people, slowly using this anthology of scenes to create audience investment in them and their lives with comedy often the entry point for recognition, understanding and empathy. It means that the darker themes emerging in this section have greater resonance as domestic abuse, mental health and trauma are explored with compassion.
The final section, a brief 40-minutes, follows the young people into lockdown signified by Kinnetia Isidore’s lounge wear. Political points have been made elsewhere in the piece both by the speakers and by Blythe in constructing the narrative arc, but here there is a sense of a generation damaged by the restrictions, the consequences of which remain unknown. There is even a touch of resentment as one character questions whether old people ever think of the young when they vote and why they should have to stay at home to protect them now? The show could use a little more of this overt questioning of the social, political and family structures that shape their lives: it is all there but more exploration of the consequences for them and us would make Our Generation stronger.
Staged by Vicki Mortimer on a thrust stage, Daniel Evans brings great energy to the show belying its lengthy run time with inventive scenic arrangements that break-up the first-person narrative. Akhila Krishnan’s video design for the dreams and hopes sequence is particularly delightful. Performed by a cast of young actors, four of whom are making their professional stage debuts, Our Generation joins Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour in giving a unique but very human voice to its teenage subjects. But just how Zac, Lucas, Robyn, Ayesha, Alu, Ierum, Luan, Mia, Callum, Annabella. Taylor and Emily will cope without their connection to their Collectors and each other may be the subject of a reunion sequel in the years to come.
Runs until 9 April 2022