Writers: Alison Carr and Leo Butler
Directors: Michele Borsten and Laura Harris
Tuesdays are boring and civilisation is on an endless cycle of destruction and renewal. The third night of National Theatre Connections 2023 takes audiences from school-based parallel worlds to a submerged existence in which floods have consumed most of London. Climate change is the link between them and together these plays, performed by Plough Youth Theatre and The Boaty Theatre Company from Torrington and Ellesmere Port respectively, reflect on the inevitability of human behaviours as the natural world limits their freedom.
First to be performed, Tuesday by Alison Carr is a charming 60-minute story that brings two sets of children together when a tear in the sky causes individuals from a parallel world, the ‘Them’, to appear in the school. This Freaky Friday swap uses an unexplained climate event to explore a period of adjustment that brings opportunities to bond but also conflict, resentment and fear as the two groups reflect on who they are and what else they could become.
Carr builds the story around several partnerships including two versions of the same girl, Magpie and Ash, who are exactly alike except one is more daring than her counterpart, spending time contrasting how different each other’s lives have been. Likewise, Jay and Alex are the thinkers, equivalents who try to solve the problem of the tear in the sky but find themselves in competition as much as they enjoy sharing their knowledge with an equal, and finally an intriguing brother and sister partnership whose opposite sibling had died in their world and are reunited with an alternate version during this event.
Performed by Plough Youth Theatre, the group collectively narrate as well as act out parts of the story, building a growing sense of paranoia and suspicion as the ‘Them’ start to assert their right to be there. It’s a classic established community reacting to outsiders trajectory, but one in which the children are left without competent adults to solve problems ranging from bullying and petty crime to fixing the universe. It may be a boring Tuesday for the school children but it’s an entertaining one for the audience.
The second piece, Innocent Creatures by Leo Butler also has a climate focus, but one merged with the developments in AI and human replication that so trouble science fiction writers. Two characters – Mia and Enid – meet on an ice flow where the Houses of Parliament used to be, watched by robotic penguins, waiting for a helicopter to take Enid to a safe hotel. Over several centuries the consequences for humanity play out as technology is used to synthesise different forms of reality while they wait for the real end of the world.
Butler’s play is ultimately about creation myths and the origin stories that are passed down with Mia and Enid as Adam and Eve representations of a kind. Later in the play, the manufactured humans talk of ‘The Manual’ as the root of their civilisation and rely on ‘common knowledge’ to guide behaviour. It is a sprawling story about the line between people and robots, but one that isn’t always certain of its direction. However, Butler creates the notions of ‘robophobia’ and drastic punishments for those remembering their lives before conversion that generate a strong scenario.
Performed by The Boaty Theatre Company, the technical presentation is very exciting with multiple screens relaying video images of code as well as icebergs and leafy forest living all created by video director Terasa Newton-Harris and accompanied by interesting movement pieces as the centuries rush by. And in a play that lasts about 75 minutes, the large ensemble effectively creates a range of different characters all vying for longer life.
With two more evenings to come, National Theatre Connections 2023 is certainly producing some memorable moments for its young performers.
Reviewed on the 22 June and the Connections Festival runs until 24 June.
Tickets are available on the NT website for £5. Applications are also open to take part in Connections 2024 now.
