Sessions explores the growing friendship between two very different men: George (Adam Halcro), a troubled youth, caught in the grip of an existence that pushes him into crime, drug use and violence, and David (Naytanael Benjamin), his caseworker and himself an ex-convict who has already escaped the life George is trapped in. Through their enforced meetings, the pair grudgingly begin to bond, and it becomes clear there’s a lot more to both men, hidden depths and pains that they simply don’t know how to open up about.
There’s a difficult line to straddle when discussing modern issues of modern masculinity; the lumping together of violence and trauma within the narrow confines of an hour’s stage traffic could push a narrative that falls into cliché, or pat moralising. Instead, it’s encouraging to see that debut playwright Sam Bates's fledgling offering instead chooses to view with empathy, grounded realism and compassion.
It’s a piece that wants to touch on a lot of things: male relationships, issues of substance abuse, unchannelled aggression, sexual and physical violence and the successes and failures of the societal systems that are in place. It’s a credit to all involved that the play manages to touch on these without feeling like they are token gestures, but also not getting bogged down in them, instead relying on fairly naturalistic dialogue that ebbs and flows believably with just enough popular culture references to sell the realism as well as the generational divide between David and George.
The performances also really help to sell the situation. Halcro spends much of the play twitching and fidgeting like a coiled spring desperate to expend its energy but with no idea where or how to vent it. Contrastingly, Benjamin is almost a sentinel of calm solidity embodying a seeming total control and a confidence born of understanding, as well as his far bigger and more imposing physical presence.
There are still some rough edges though. Some line readings feel a little flat and rushed, and the few transitions could be tighter. More pertinently, the play builds to a powerful and emotional finale, but the latter scenes before the end feel confused in their meandering, jumping around in ways that make it slightly unclear about the time and place and giving a discombobulating feel. Still, these are teething issues, and as first plays go, Bates has dropped into the theatre scene like a sledgehammer with Sessions. It’s a powerful and resonant play which will stay in the minds of the audience long after the final applause ends.