A story about a queer schoolboy's desires. It's basically a kid (Ruth Negga) being picked on for the sound of his voice and a telling of adolescent angst about isolation and not fitting in. The whole hour (no interval) is dark (often completely) and experimental; there's a lot of swords, a deconstructed sword-fight (slo-mo), fencing masks and long, disjointed violin sounds using... swords.
Everything is slow: music, voice, movement. The slowness weaves them (and us) into something quite mesmerising, but it's also uncomfortable to be in a live soundscape that's deliberately awkward and fragmented with words being dropped very slowly, like a leaking tap.
Ruth Negga (Academy Award nominee) is breathtaking to watch. She owns her body, voice, pace in such a way that, even when I failed to follow the script, I couldn't take my eyes off her. That's when I could see her! The play seemed to mostly be in darkness, which I found an odd choice.
The violin, cello and double bass weave around 'Boy' and share the stage. They emit sounds rather than music. It's random, awkward and far from melodious, which blend nicely with the character's unhappiness. The lighting does the same: jagged lines blazing or dimming in line with the story.
Finn Beames is the writer, composer and director—his first work since his company (collaborators) won the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award 2024, and this work, I read, is semi-autobiographical, which would account for the raw and honest account of turmoil conveyed.
If my review is hard to understand, I think it's because this show is. And yet, I left the theatre glad I'd witnessed something so meticulously crafted, albeit odd and unique.