FringeReview UK 2024
Hide and Seek
Zava Productions in association with Producer Lorenzo Mannelli and Park Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, European Theatre, LGBT Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre, Tragedy
Venue: Park Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
How do two teenage boys discover both their uniqueness and sexuality in the same moment and stop the bullying world pressing in? Tobia Rossi’s prize-winning 2016 Hide and Seek translated and directed by Carlotta Brentan arrives at Park Theatre till March 30th
Both Nico Cetrulo and Louis Scarpia are fresh, emotionally fluent and wincingly vulnerable. An absorbing two-hander, sashaying through 85 minutes with as unexpected an ending as Lauren Gunderson’s I and You. With a coda. There’s moments too that recall E.M. Forster’s story The Open Boat.
Altogether a plea for living a life of love and affirmation without shame, it’s also a pitiless examination of just what young people themselves reflect when discovering their uniqueness, their difference, which isn’t just sexual: and their sheer terror, not of that difference, but their perception of how it’s judged by an accusing society. Very highly recommended.
Written by Tobia Rossi, Translator and Director Carlotta Brentan, Music Composer & Sound Designer Simone Manfredini, Fight & Intimacy Director Michael O’Donnell, Set & Costume Designer Constance Comparot, Lighting Designer Alex Forey, Stylist Alessandro Milzoni
Dramaturg and Assistant Director Garda Prestinari, Production Stage Manager Fae Hochgemuth, Production Assistant Astrid Galetto, Casting Consultant Laura Seaborn for Hub Casting,
Marketing Liam Mclaughlin & Megan Gibbons, Content Creator Mariano Gobbi, Producer and General Manager Zava Productions, Associate Producer Lorenzo Mannelli, Co-Producer Kairos Italy Theatre, Press Marketing Mobius PR
Till March 30th
Review
How do two teenage boys discover both their uniqueness and sexuality in the same moment and stop the bullying world pressing in? Tobia Rossi’s prize-winning 2016 Hide and Seek translated and directed by Carlotta Brentan arrives at Park Theatre till March 30th
Mirko (Nico Cetrulo) accidentally comes across missing schoolmate Gio (Louis Scarpia) in a cave. Gio, sick of the shaming and bullying he receives, including unwanted attentions from one girl, decides to vanish. He’s planned it, with a gradually-accumulated supply of foods and gear.
It’s been a long time coming. Once aged six, Gio conducted a marriage ceremony with another boy, six or seven classmates looking on. But an adult spots them, the other boy moves villages. Despite his Tic-Toc talks (we see one) Gio’s never fitted in. A “zero-zero.”
Will admiring Mirko help him? Not betray him? Mirko thinks Gio irresponsible: he should come home, everyone’s terrified he’s been murdered. Gradually though, Gio’s absence is accepted: Mirko finds it attractive too.
Fluid dynamics reflect the boys’ self-discovery in each other. Initially dominant Gio still wants to discover exactly how his vanishing’s been taken; is far more dependant, even renouncing the world, on that world’s opinion. Mirko is his link as well as supplier.
Mirko feeds news. Gio has to trust it. It becomes clear Mirko’s only editing insomuch as he occasionally holds back And slowly the news becomes about Mirko too. At school, Gio noticed Mirko, who didn’t stick up for him but was clearly interested. Now it’s Mirko who might be detected.
When Gio asks Mirko to do something astonishing to help confirm he was kidnapped, it threatens to engulf Mirko. Mirko’s already been excluded from What’s App groups commemorating Gio. So Mirko too begins to know what the world’s shaming can do. But is he Gio?
“This morning I went to church with my parents. Your mum was a few rows in front of us. At one point she turned and gave me this look…” That tells you all you need to know of their community.
Gradually a physical bond forms: dynamics and role-play move to intimacy. Practising kissing a girl admirer becomes franker. Michael O’Donnell’s fight and intimacy direction is delicate, hinted in a fairly intimate space.
Ultimately how, when one finds a way, does this affect the other who discovers him? And what if dynamics change? Gio begins to miss the world, not just its opinions. “I’m not a zero-zero anymore.” Mirko though finds in his secret sharer something precious. Should Gio emerge, what will become of them, of Mirko?
Hide and seek, the term explicitly used by Mirko is as funny as it is tender, frightening as it is fun-loving. There’s gleeful moments when Gio quizzes Mirko on how viral his Tick-Tok page has gone.
Smart Gio worked out his phone would give him away; long ago smashed and discarded it. Gio’s confusions are none the less real for being hyper-articulate. And Mirko’s conflicted cowardice, admiring Gio’s singular courage contains its own seeds. “You created me, and I created you” Mirko reflects at one point. And near the end admits: “I wish I could be like you, Gio. I wish I was you.”
This is a play wielding a tender, sometimes terrible complicity in two boys not yet in control of their feelings or drastic solutions. With an ultimately tragic sucker-punch.
Simone Manfredini’s attractive diatonic melody cascades like a mournful waterfall in one of those caves. As does Alex Forey’s lighting, both fairy lights and unobtrusive overheads, shedding softly over Constance Comparot’s set. It’s a strew of cushions, shopping bags and detritus, a gestural cave complex at one end, modestly proportioned with a raised rectangular dais centre-stage where the action mainly takes place.
Both Cetrulo and Scarpia are fresh, emotionally fluent and wincingly vulnerable. An absorbing two-hander, sashaying through 85 minutes with as unexpected an ending as Lauren Gunderson’s I and You. With a coda. There’s moments too that recall E.M. Forster’s story The Open Boat.
Altogether a plea for living a life of love and affirmation without shame, it’s also a pitiless examination of just what young people themselves reflect when discovering their uniqueness, their difference, which isn’t just sexual: and their sheer terror, not of that difference, but their perception of how it’s judged by an accusing society. Very highly recommended.
