Ben Ewing | Bouquets & Brickbats

24/09/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Wolves at the Door, the second in this season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint at the Traverse, is a heartfelt polemic, written by Jack Hunter and directed by Amie Burns Walker. As Winter crooks its frosty finger and beckons, this timely piece zooms in on the issue of energy companies forcing impoverished people to use expensive prepaid gas and electricity meters.

The allegory of a Big Bad Wolf threatening the security of a vulnerable Little Pig might not be subtle but it’s certainly effective, and Heather Grace Currie’s dingy set design reminds us exactly how Grimm (sorry) the situation is.

The Pig, Daniel (Ciaran Stewart), is struggling. He’s lost his job, his marriage has fallen apart and he’s desperate to maintain a good relationship with his seven-year-old daughter. But how can he do that when the flat he’s renting is mouldy and damp, and a combination of Universal Credit and part-time shelf-stacking barely leaves him enough to feed himself, let alone put the heating on? Worst of all, his daughter knows. She puts on a brave face for him, trying to reassure him that the crappy pizza he’s heated up is exactly what she wants for her tea. He can’t bear it.

Enter the Wolf, Malc (Ben Ewing), and his sidekick, Sussanne (Beth Marshall). He’s a debt collector and she’s an engineer, and they’re here at the behest of the energy company, to install a new smart meter – one that requires prepayment. If he doesn’t have the money up front, Daniel will be left without power.

Malc is unsympathetic. He knows what poor looks like; it’s how he grew up. But he believes it’s up to individuals to get off their arses and sort themselves out – like he has done. Ewing portrays the GB News-loving cynic with a charismatic swagger. “How can someone call themselves broke if they’re still drinking ground coffee, if they’ve got a TV and a Playstation?” he demands. Sussanne is less world-weary – it’s her first day – and more sympathetic too: she doesn’t think it’s a lot to ask for a warm, safe home and enough food in your belly; she’s in favour of a benefits system that allows people a few small treats. Marshall imbues the conflicted newbie with real heart – but hey, she’s got a job to do, and if she doesn’t do it, she’ll be in the same boat as Daniel.

Hunter makes some important points in this play, but the dialogue focuses too intensely on the issue, reducing the characters to representatives of their respective positions, rather than fully-rounded people. While the dark humour works well in places, a lighter touch is needed throughout to stop the story from being bogged down by its own good intentions – and perhaps the brusque conclusion ties everything up a little too neatly to be entirely convincing.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

10/06/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Edinburgh-born Joseph lives in New York, where he is a celebrated child psychiatrist. He seems to be living his best life, with a beautiful, clever girlfriend, as well as a stellar career. But Joseph’s success is built on shameful foundations and a reckoning looms. Reparations need to be made on both the micro and the macro level – for his own transgressions as well as his country’s.

There are two distinct strands here, each echoing the other, their links compelling if not always quite clear.

On the one hand, we have a pretty straightforward ghost story, its origins laid bare in the opening scene, where Joseph (Cal MacAninch) is confronted with a repressed memory from when he was five years old: his baby brother’s murder. This shocking revelation opens the door to other carefully-buried feelings of guilt, and Joseph soon finds himself tormented by the ghost of a thirteen-year-old patient, Sam (Ben Ewing), who holds the doctor accountable for his death.

On the other hand, we have a meditation on the nature of colonisation, symbolised by Joseph’s relationship with Cindy (Mara Huf), a Native American anthropologist. Cindy’s culture, all-but erased by white settlers, has now been commodified for their entertainment, and the couple indulge in an ‘authentic’ 1700s dinner in a fancy Manhattan restaurant. At first, the pair are in celebratory mode. After all, Cindy has just completed her PhD. But, as Joseph insists on sharing a long and rambling fantasy, a feeling of unease begins to grow, and it’s a relief when Cindy calls him out, and the allegorical nature of his proprietorial daydream is made evident.

This is an ambitious piece of theatre, and the actors are clearly revelling in its complexity. Ewing is particularly striking, both as the mysterious “wait”-er and the troubled Sam. The set, by Kenneth MacLeod, is stark and simple, the squares of light redolent of the glass-box apartments on Edinburgh’s Quartermile, ex-home of the Royal Infirmary, where Joseph used to work. These borders also serve to hem the characters in, trapping them in a claustrophobic nightmare.

For the most part, Kolbrún Björt Sigfúsdóttir’s direction is flawless, imbuing the piece with all the gravitas it requires. Even the scene transitions are eerie, each prop moved with intent – all carefully choreographed for maximum impact. However, all this precision makes the use of dry ice especially irritating. It adds nothing; it’s just invasive, obscuring the stage and making the audience cough.

I like what McClure is trying to achieve here. It’s an exacting script with a vast scope. I’m not sure it always comes off – a little more transparency wouldn’t go amiss – and it’s certainly not a crowd-pleaser (there are five walk-outs in tonight’s show). But we need theatre that pushes boundaries and challenges our expectations, and ChildMinder certainly gives us that.

3.7 stars

Susan Singfield