A quirky, clever reflection on death and acceptance that may require some homework before curtain up. Rating
Good
It’s always exciting when you find yourself at an unusual show; it can encourage new ways of encountering the world and the everyday issues we face. Stories for Boys, written by Kieron Barry and currently playing at the Drayton Arms Theatre, has this potential.
Like life itself, the work feels experimental and at times uncertain. It encourages us to consider our reality by immersing us in an absurd space that contains questions about what we know about life and death, how we can shape our lives, but also the certainty of the value of love even when social pressures make things difficult.
This is a complex, fascinating piece of work that is at times bewildering but also comic, and it is meticulously directed by Hope Wishart. The format delivers a series of vignettes from a talented supporting ensemble (Adam Barlow, Lewis Blomfield, Samuel Ferrer and Thelma Solea), which begin with a car crash and then discuss life and death through varied, lightly comic interludes. These are then set against a parallel story where a royal donkey (Florence Dobson) and his fish servant (Agatha Elwes) are in the midst of a life changing scenario – the wedding of the donkey to a landed turtle – and have limited time to make choices that might alter things forever,
There’s lots to appreciate, including inventive objects, shadow puppetry and entertaining physical theatre. An opening scene where a tiny car races across a mountainous landscape shaped by Solea’s human form is particularly lovely. Throughout, Barnaby Booth’s elegant lighting design is just beautiful, succinctly portraying a world of light and dark that can never be fully understood as light nor dark. Helen Skiera’s textured sound design, too, is highly effective, shifting emotional tones creatively and giving us hints of Peaky Blinders against a ‘Perfect Day’.
The show has a hugely abstract, slightly gothic feel – think Gormenghast meets Gogol meets Mighty Boosh – but is at times erudite to the point of bewilderment. It references many theatrical and artistic works, meaning the audience requires quite a wide knowledge to fully appreciate the whole. Moments recreating great artworks are excellent in principle, but can be tricky to grasp if you don’t have the reference. Quotations from Shakespeare are frequent, and a setting of a fluffy white rug becoming an ethereal plane for the meeting of out of body thinking totally parallels that of Tim Crouch’s Toto Kerblammo. If you don’t get all of this it can become quite an ask to sit through 90 minutes of fractured thoughts without a clear through line or a revelatory structure. Even come the ending when truths become clear, it’s rapid and feels somewhat unsatisfactory.
There’s a great deal of talent on the stage here, and some interesting ideas raised about complex existential, philosophical and social issues: it just requires rather a lot of background knowledge for much of the content to land, and an additional ability to immerse yourself in an abstract space for a long time in order to process what’s being discussed and portrayed.
Stories for Boys is a crafted piece of work and really has a lot of potential. What the show succeeds in doing best is inviting thoughts about acceptance of difference; consciousness of the unknown; the preciousness of time; human capability for change – if you want it; and above all the fact that love alone is a magnificent reason to live.
Written by Kieron Barry
Directed by Hope Wishart
Executive producer: Robert Taylor
Set and Costume Design by Enza Kim
Lighting Design by Barnaby Booth
Sound Design by Helen Skiera
Costume Design by May Kelley
Stories for Boys plays at the Drayton Arms until Saturday 20 June.
