March 4, 2010
Winner: Best Play, OUDS New Writing Festival 2010
Richard O'Brien's writing is flawless, and spot on. It's absolutely crammed with profanities yet not one of them jolts you, because that is how his characters are. It's honest, and immediate, and very very powerful. The characters are complex and surprisingly likeable.
The play covers the period from high school exams, through the long summer, to the first months at university. John (Jarred Wiehe) and Matthew (Eli Keehn) are Americans coming to London to study. There they meet Lucy (Krittika Bhattacharjee) a nervous and devout Catholic, and Mary (Charlotte Salkind) anything but a Virgin.
All four actors are superb. The banter and jostling between the boys is really good, and they play the pivotal scenes to perfection, not overdramatising the material. I was especially impressed with Bhattacharjee as Lucy. It's very hard to believe, not knowing her, that she wasn't playing exactly herself, her character was so consistent.
With only four characters a whole world of University and parties is conjured up. The duality of being this particular age, on the cusp of adulthood, is captured powerfully in the strengths and vulnerabilities, the knowing and naivety, the romantic and the dirty. Amongst the tangle of these four lives and the everyday preoccupations of sex, drugs and friendship, O'Brien makes us care, deeply about these imperfect people. I could hear other members of the audience gasp at one dramatic moment, and there were some supportive hugs at the end.
So no, it doesn't end entirely happily for everyone, and yes I'm still feeling the punch today. But that's a recommendation. This is a superb production, and well worth seeing. The whole of the New Writing Festival seems to be going down well. Personally I'd say Instead of Beauty is the best of the lot.