Review: Still Here, Golden Goose Theatre

The Golden Goose is a typical pub theatre: a compact black box in an unassuming room in a less-than-glamorous pub. For Still Here, the sparse seating is arranged on three sides in a thrust stage formation, with boxing ropes marking the performance space. A simple design, it creates an intimacy between performer and audience while anchoring us to the physical and metaphorical home of the piece: the boxing ring.

Scattered just outside the ropes are a few personal items, mostly boxing-related, and a couple of chairs, which are moved in and out to signal presence. And that’s it. Yet with a cleverly nuanced script, powerful performances, and subtle lighting, the audience is transported. We travel from a school to a care home, a supermarket, a park, and a boxing gym: all in the Rhondda Valley. Although just two actors are on stage, the voices of their families and friends ring clear: it becomes hard to remember these characters aren’t physically there.

Rhys (Phillip John Jones) and Yasmin (Emma Kaler) are both 18, Welsh and struggling to communicate with their parents. Yasmin has ended up at Rhys’s local comprehensive having been excluded from her ‘posh’ all-girls school in Cardiff. He’s White Welsh, she’s Asian Welsh: her skin colour an obvious differentiator in The Valleys. She’s bright, clearly, but is rebelling against her middle-class parents so is now living with her nan. Rhys lives with his dad, although he hankers after his mum, who is no longer there. The most significant piece of furniture in his house is a battered fridge, which his father continues to fill with fish every week despite neither of them eating it. The local fishmonger keeps portions by for them every week: an unexplained habit that is linked to Rhys’s mother. It is initially unclear as to where she is. Rhys’s friend’s mum occasionally provides home-cooked food for him: the emotion inherent in such a maternal gesture and his struggle to accept it is gut-wrenching. Yasmin loves her nan’s cooking, which is filled with exotic spice, colourful and fragrant: similarly emotive.

The play spans their summer, following their growth, struggles and steps toward adulthood as they wait for their A-level results and the life choices they will bring. They’re ordinary teenagers, filled with frustration and uncertainty, which is deeply compelling. The boxing ring isn’t just a setting, it’s a sanctuary for Rhys, a space where he feels in control. When Yasmin enters it, tension flares. The end brings a fragile truce, mutual acceptance and understanding.

A few things are worthy of note. Firstly, the writing by Mari Lloyd: it’s almost musical in its use of rhythm and the choice of tone and delivery frequently demands the audience’s attention as it changes pace and plot. It’s clever, imaginative and layered. The set, both concept and design by Rachael Rooney, reinforces the dual purpose of the boxing ring, which is a space for confrontation whilst simultaneously protective. Jonathan Samuels’ lighting, seemingly simple, fades and rises as needed, highlighting emotion and danger. And then the acting: wow. These two young actors are accomplished, moving between emotion and scenes seamlessly, never less than absorbing. There’s also the seemingly small touches: a thoughtfully chosen gift is cast aside in embarrassment and frustration, but left in sight of the audience: a poignant reminder of love and loss and a teenage inability to vocalise emotion.

This seemingly modest black box production is incredibly powerful and resonates long after the end.

Written by: Mari Lloyd
Directed by: Julia Stubbs
Sound Design by: Jamie Lu
Set & Costume Design by: Rachael Rooney
Lighting Design by: Jonathan Samuels
Produced by: Still Here Productions

Still Here plays at the Golden Goose theatre until Saturday 6 September.