Brighton Year-Round 2024
The IT
ACT Youth Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Short Plays, Theatre, Youth Theatre
Venue: Lantern Theatre, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
“It’s about the size of a cherry stone…” Soon it’s coming out of her throat. Grace Fremantle’s plight is witnessed in docu-retrospect by five others – mainly other 16-year-olds at school. They circle around the gravitational black hole of the unexceptional Grace herself (Nu Eddisford-Finlay).Vivienne Franzmann’s 2021 NT Connections play The IT is directed by Alice Elliott at the Lantern for two weekend performances.
A truly worthwhile production
Directed by Alice Elliott, Lighting and Tech by Daniel Finlay.
Review
“It is really small. Whatever it is.
But it’s here.
It’s definitely here.”
“It’s about the size of a cherry stone…” Soon it’s coming out of her throat. Grace Fremantle’s plight is witnessed in docu-retrospect by five others – mainly other 16-year-olds at school. They circle around the gravitational black hole of the unexceptional Grace herself (Nu Eddisford-Finlay).Vivienne Franzmann’s 2021 NT Connections play The IT is directed by Alice Elliott at the Lantern for two weekend performances.
The IT, like other Connections plays lasting around 50 minutes, is designed for young performers, of any number. Elliott chooses six performers from the ACT Youth Theatre one-year course. Apart from Eddisford-Finlay’s Grace they mainly muti-role, though distinctive or dominant characters emerge.
Franzmann’s known as an ex-teacher whose string of four (mainly) Royal Court plays from 2008-17 are the Bruntwood and George Devine Award-winning Mogadishu (about school false witness), The Witness (about Black adoption in a war-zone), Pests (a Clean Break-commissioned piece about sisters after prison battling addiction) and Bodies (tackling international surrogacy).
Franzmann (b. 1971) has subsequently written for TV and radio. The IT was named Best Play for Young Audiences at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards 2023. Her previous career as teacher which informed Mogadishu at every point, certainly returns with acuity here.
Particularly striking is the energy and precision of Eliott’s overall ensemble. Aided by Daniel Finlay’s sometimes red lighting they erupt in congas on acid, whisper rumours and touch Grace’s Id themselves. Ensemble blocking swirls away to leave Grace isolated. It’s a telling visual for teen bonding, punning, shaming, collusion and isolation.
Eddisford-Finlay acts with an inwardness that never becomes mannered or shrill. Grace’s intensity is that of someone with a secret. An apparently abnormal sensitivity to world catastrophes like war, climate change, street knifings is something she’s ashamed of. It might go back to childhood when she screamed violently at five, an event caught on camera and much later uploaded to others’ amusement.
The trope’s clear: Grace is used to being shamed, and what’s happening inside her – definitely not pregnancy – must be kept from everyone. Her bodily reaction becomes so internalised you think it might be a simple metaphor. Like eating disorders. It isn’t. We find out something at the end to skew this. Grace notes how the cherry stone morphs into a bud thrusting out through her thigh, or the size of a Highland Terrier puppy.
Swiftly, Grace withdraws from friendships, particularly with Best Friend (Joe Newman) whose father like Grace’s is a Twitcher. She shuts him out. Beck Lucas is one go-to for authority figures, in bright, occasionally breathless performances: hovering parents; supply teachers and an apotheosis as a PE teacher.
Newman particularly impresses with the clarity and poise of his BF role, nuancing regret, bewilderment at an assault (good physical blocking here too) and as one of the two main commentators on what happens to Grace. Newman has confidence and can afford to outface the audience on occasion.
Mae Robinson too exudes almost casual assurance as a lawyer giving a pep-talk on Darwinian competitiveness and other roles, including witness to something that kins her with Grace at the end. Vocally like Newman she impresses and chisels her words.
Sola Ohara as the overwhelmed Geography teacher trying to impress climate change has a palpably lucid rationale: that emerges through the performance with authority.
Samaa Bhatti has the tricky task of conveying two redundant, hesitant characters. She captures the inward feeling of inadequacy even telling pointless stories.
She, and Lucas with his vivid presence are at opposite poles, yet share a rushed sense of delivery: they can trust themselves to project with more deliberation. But all six performers provided ensemble storytelling with a snap and assurance beyond their years.
Grace’s apotheosis is handled by Eddisford-Finlay with a hushed desolation that Robinson complements by adding a chilling postlude on her own character.
Franzmann’s warning is stark: with worldwide media the world forces itself bodily on teenagers. When they internalise this, hell is empty and all the devils are here inside them. Then they let them go.
There’s risk-taking and freshness here, a showcase ensemble piece eliciting some strong performances . A truly worthwhile production: it’s clear several will go on to become tomorrow’s actors, should the climate – in all senses – deliver any justice.
