REVIEW: SCORCHED by Tallulah Bond at Etcetera Theatre 23 – 28 May 2023

‘The play makes its mark in a heartfelt and deeply human way’ ★★★★ ½

Curiously, climate change is not a particularly popular subject for plays (currently in performance), despite the urgency of its themes.  It’s the elephant in the room, it’s the head in the sand; many of us are still reeling from lockdown and aren’t ready to meet this challenge head on. So, when a play promises to use the analogy of a couple whose relationships grows ever more caustic until its deadly end, using the personal to talk about the bigger issue, it’s a promising start. Fortunately, the show is funny, intelligent and surprising. 

The stage is set with a couple of deck chairs in front of the couple’s barge. They run in playing a ridiculous game of tag and bemoaning the fact that their neighbours are having a party but haven’t invited them. They are typically a little jealous to be left out.  The relationship between the pair is revealed piece by piece, with fantastic games, powerplay and escalating cruelty. The suspicion that they are not reliable narrators of their own story begins to emerge when Lena falls in love with Donnell’s painting of a Russian woman (or maybe Polish woman – they aren’t sure). As they strive to keep a veneer of normality, their façade begins to crack allowing shards of the real state of affairs to break through.  

Writer Tallulah Bond plays Lena with controlled contempt and anger, all her sardonic lines land beautifully. Douglas Clarke-Wood as Donnell appears as vulnerable and his emotional state, his inner conflicts, show through.  The malevolence of the relationship is driven to the furthest extremity, until it begins to feel like repetition (a dangerous place where audiences sometimes switch off), but then the revelations start to emerge and are all the more poignant for the slight hiatus.

These young actors manage to embody all the hope, desires and ambition of youth, now being crushed by the oncoming event.  It would be fascinating to see how a middle-aged couple (or old age couple) would approach the script. The play certainly has a future, not least because so few plays manage to approach global warming at a personal level (they are often didactic and preacherly).  This play really makes its mark in a heartfelt and deeply human way. 

It's not about facts, it’s about how we respond to what is happening, and how we could do better.   

SCORCHED

Cast:

Tallulah Bond

Douglas Clarke-Wood

Creatives:

Written by Tallulah Bond

Directed by Mike Narouei

Designed by Matthew Lyons.

Produced by https://vetoproductions.com

Reviewed by Heather Jeffery, editor of London Pub Theatres Magazine