Harley Young experiences an onslaught of emotions at the Royal Exchange Theatre
Subjective rating: 9/10
What: 2019’s Bruntwood Prize-winning play by Phoebe Eclair-Powell, directed by Atri Banerjee.
Where: Royal Exchange Theatre
Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes (no interval)
Tickets: From £10. Available to purchase here.
What Royal Exchange Theatre says: Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s stunning new play was the 2019 winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting. SHED: EXPLODED VIEW is a delicately woven tapestry about violence, love and loss, brought to the stage by award-winning director Atri Banerjee.
Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre buzzed with anticipation - journalists, writers, actors, students of the arts and the likes all corralled under one roof, and a rather unique roof at that. With its circular, glass auditorium and colour-coded staircases shooting off from every corner, the spider-like structure looks like something out of The War of the Worlds.
In the centre of the performance hall, on a circular, rotatable platform stood a shed. An ordinary-looking, unvarnished shed. Nothing spectacular about it other than a few streaks of light seeping through the cracks and some overhead spotlights beaming down on it. Smoke filled the stage causing the light to fragment, highlighting the faces of the audience who were all surely thinking ‘What on earth is going on?’
Before your mind has time to run wild with possibilities, the lights dim and two screens either side of the stage’s circumference flash up with numbers. A countdown. New Year’s Eve. An explosion.
Lizzy Watts’ character Naomi begins her monologue whilst staring into the shed: “There was a fork in her face. An actual fork. He dug a fork into her face. A fork stood on end in her cheek. A fork.”
The plot of the play follows three couples over thirty years. ‘Mothers and daughters, lovers, partners, husbands and wives. Babies, teenagers, birthdays, holidays, honeymoons, fireworks, near-misses, rain. The smallest tremble. A smashed glass. The ripping apart of space and time. An explosion.’
Taking a behind the scenes look at the nitty, gritty parts of relationships that you don’t always see. The struggles, the anger, the violence in some unfortunate cases. A loss of love and infatuation with your significant other. A loss of oneself to horrific, slow-eating diseases like dementia.
It packs it all into a bite-sized package that leaves you white-knuckled, clawing at your seat, ready to clamber over the rail and give the character a good shake and ask them “What the fuck are you doing? Run. Now, while you’ve got the chance.”
You forget it’s all just acting. Probably because in a way it’s not. Because as a viewer you either know someone who’s gone through an experience similar to these, or you’ve been unfortunate enough to experience it firsthand.
It’s emotive. Uncomfortable. Gut-wrenching at parts even. Each character has their own complex storylines to follow and certain scenes overlap, leaving the actors fighting for their breath in call-and-response style as the tension builds and the stage spins like a carousel.
This powerful original new drama from Phoebe Eclair-Powell is a well executed play with an exceptionally well-chosen cast to perform it.
The light faded to black and the auditorium erupted with applause, leaving the cast themselves visibly touched by the response, having physically and mentally given their all during the last hour and forty minutes.
It’s a taxing performance for any actor, and audience watching too, which was recognised by the posters in the toilets and atrium asking for those who could be triggered by the event to contact their helpline.
This Royal Exchange Theatre world premiere is a raw, unfiltered and brutally honest look at manipulation and violence within different relationship dynamics. It makes you wince. You feel uncomfortable witnessing it but, like a car crash, you just can’t pry your eyes away.
This production is recommended for those aged 14 and above and is on until Saturday 2 March.
See Johan Persson’s full collection of stills from the production below.
Follow Harley Young on X @Harley__Young
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