Writer: Alex Ansdell
Director: David Frias-Robles
Stuck in a locked mini-bus in the arse-end of Holland, seven young footballers discover what it means to be men. Masculinity is far more complicated than it was in the era of Ancient Greece; we remember those men as warriors, statesmen and heroes. How can male teenagers hope to emulate the men of old?
One boy, Clarky (Gruff Williams), plans to go to Oxford University while Jonno (Isaac Gray) has an upcoming trial at Crawley FC. We never discover the ambitions of the others. Two of them, perhaps giving a clue to their youth, play old-school Dungeons and Dragons while their mates play FIFA on the PlayStation. The half-out gay Xavier (Will Darwin) has pie-eyed dreams of owning a vineyard in Provence by the age of 50, but what he will do in the interim period is never revealed.
In the same way that they are lost in the countryside, the lads are stranded between boyhood and manhood with no role models to guide them apart from Harry Kane, Michael Jordan and, of course, the self-assured Ancient Greeks.
With nothing to do in the bus until their teacher returns with a new tyre, the boys begin to strategize their next match in the five-aside tournament in which they are competing. They go through many line-ups, but all end with the promise that they’ll have each other backs. They’ll work as a team.
For most of Alex Ansdell’s play, there is no real narrative and it seems as if the boys’ unfocussed banter will take up the whole of the 60 minutes. There’s no talk of music, exams, social media or food; all subjects that teenagers are passionate about. Their loose conversations are pleasant enough to listen to but with no bullies, no dominating Alpha male and no cursing, most of Phalanx doesn’t feel authentic.
However, the real story appears like a last-minute goal and the shocking revelation threatens to blow apart the boys’ newly-forged camaraderie. Suddenly, we are thrown into the politics of consent, so explosively tackled in Molly Manning Walker’s excellent film How To Have Sex. The movie portrays the subject from a young woman’s point of view; here we have it from the stance of young men, unsure what direction to take after they realise what their teammate has done.
The last 10 minutes are gripping theatre, and the last line, as the lights go out, is the perfect place to finish such a play, ensuring that the conversation is taken outside the theatre once the show has ended. It’s a clever move to keep the crux of the story hidden until the tail-end of the play, but perhaps something could be hinted at earlier on to give Phalanx a sense of uneasiness right from the start. But, then again, the wrong-footing of the audience is what makes this play work so effectively.
Runs until 28 June 2024
