REVIEW: Violence and Son, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs ✭✭✭✭

Violence And Son

Jerwood Theatre Upstairs

8 June 2015

4 Stars

The Royal Court has not had the best of runs recently, so it is heartening to report that in this new play by Gary Owen they have a really fine piece of writing in a memorable production that is fully in line with the radical and deliberately discomfiting traditions of this theatre. The action is disconcerting and uncomfortable at times to watch and until its denouement entirely convincing. The cast is uniformly excellent and the production values entirely in line with aims and ambitions of the writer. The creative team as a whole has done a fine job in bringing this substantial work (well over 100pp. in the printed text) before us in a production that never for a moment drags or ceases to provoke and entertain.

The performance is arranged in the round in the Jerwood Upstairs. We find ourselves in the tired and shabby living room of a house in the Valleys of South Wales. We begin with a ‘Dr Who’ fantasy sequence in which the bundle of strip lights above the stage descends to become a tardis console and Liam (David Moorst) enters to direct proceedings dressed as Matt Smith’s Dr. Similar interludes with sonic screwdrivers and light sabers follow to accompany the scene changes. These are not merely or mainly decorative and diverting. Instead, they establish one of the key themes of this many-layered play, namely, Liam’s need to find one aspect of his life, where just for a moment he can feel in control of his destiny, as subject rather than object. His is a character where powerlessness is the norm, where the challenge is to find both means of survival and means of self-assertion. The course of the play is charted through the rivalrous ways in which the other characters offer suggestions and temptations for his achieving those goals while simultaneously creating obstacles too.

Liam is the seventeen-year-old son of Rick (Jason Hughes) a roister-doister of a father, whose character is summed up by his nickname ‘Violence’, shortened, affectionally or not, to ‘Vile’. Liam was brought up by his mother in the North of England and has recently had to return to his father in Wales after his mother’s death from cancer so he has some sort of base while he completes his A-levels. He has no other options.

He responds to this situation partly by mute acceptance of the bullying atmosphere at home and partly through escapism, such as dressing up as Matt Smith, fez and all. Rick, in the meantime, has settled into a steady routine of drinking and whoring with bursts of extravagant aggression that can break out unexpectedly. He is a brooding presence of initially few words, softened to an extent by the presence of his regular girlfriend Suze(Siwan Morris) who shares his taste for booze and rowdy nights out. Into this domestic setting comes Jen (Morfydd Clark), a friend of Liam’s with whom he has just attended a ‘Dr Who’ fan convention. The actions plays out continuously over one evening once Jen cannot get a taxi home and has to sleep over.

There is of course no shortage of fine, harrowing plays exploring the theme of domestic violence, its causes, motivations and consequences for all concerned. This one scores highly though in three different ways.

Firstly, it is remarkably even-handed in its presentation of the issues and conflicts. While never trying to make any excuse or extenuation for acts of physical and sexual violence, Gary Owen is adept in pointing out ways in which the characters wind each other up, sometimes deliberately, in order to elicit a response that they must know is likely to end badly. This applies to all the relationships involved: Liam both detests his father and desperately wants to be noticed and to win his respect; Suze craves Rick’s attention and will go to mutually undermining lengths to obtain it; and Jen presents herself to Liam as both a friend and something more than that in a way that leaves him and the audience confused as to her real intentions.

Secondly, the writing shows rare skill in illustrating how all of the characters interact so damagingly with one another because in reality they are all operating in their own bubbles and not imaginatively engaging with one another at all. This is particularly the case with Rick/Vile who cannot think outside the life of daily drinking, easy sexual conquest, and violent reactions to frustration that have been the themes of his life. One of the points the play makes repeatedly, perhaps over didactically by the end, is that a refusal to listen or even notice other people leads inexorably to the bludgeoning imposition of both viewpoints and fists.

Finally, it is very important to stress that it is not all doom and gloom in this play by any means. There is a counter-point of wry humour and inventive ribaldry that runs alongside the ominous threat of violence and which serves to make all the characters sympathetic at different points. This applies even to Vile, who has a shrewd and satirical native wit when sober enough to use it.

The performances are outstandingly good from all four players, and the direction fluent and unfussy, making full use of the small space available. Moorst is excellent at conveying Liam’s geeky awkwardness, his continuing grief for his mother and his wholly mixed-up, unstable, rolling boil of emotions concerning his father.

Hughes prowls around the set with a simmering intensity that you feel could flame into violence at any moment. Morris makes full use of the opportunities given to a character where there are some underdeveloped aspects, and Clark gives a nuanced, detailed account of a character whose real intentions remain an enigma and a source of confusion, even to herself.

So why hold back on a final star for this admirable production? It is simply because after so much fine work in developing subtle character and situation the ending is jarring and not readily equated or joined with what has gone before. In particular there seems to be a disconnect between the penultimate scene in which Liam convincingly and shrewdly unravels how little Jen actually knows about love and life and what follows, which wrenches the characters in directions at odds with all the previous trends.

There is, in other words, an unresolved tension between the consistent and thoughtful development of character and the need for yet further twists in the plot. For me the ending was simply one switchback too far that helps neither the argument nor the drama.

Violence and Son runs at the Royal Court (Jerwood Theatre Upstairs) until 11 July 2015