This week, Bedlam bore witness to Road, a story following the community of a Northern mining town in Thatcher’s Britain. Traditionally performed on a promenade, this production transforms Bedlam into a time capsule of 1986. From the moment of your arrival, cast members run between queues of people loudly laughing and jeering, and even play darts in the bar (or as it is rechristened “The Millstone Pub”). Scullery, our mysterious, drunken “guide” throughout the play, shows us to our seats – even at one point managing a disgruntled audience member’s seating problem entirely in character. Directness and immediacy, you quickly realise, are central to the storytelling of Road.
The cast’s energy on nights out is punctuated by sobering monologues exploring the characters’ personal strife under the economic desertion synonymous with their time, as they battle to find joy and connection. This fight of contrasts is perfectly contained in the stand-out performances of Ava Vaccari, as both Molly and Lane: in one moment, she is the pub-crawling life of the party, and the next, a mumbling, wandering singleton, hilariously and tragically shuffling along the stage to make a cup of tea and sing to her teddy. Ben Black also provided an impressive and contrasting insight into the effects of hardship on a young person’s life. Holding the stage in a ranting monologue, he captivated the audience’s sympathies as he turned his anger on them. Black’s performance was decisively enhanced through lighting design by Miki Ivan, who added consistent dimension to the spacing of the stage, creating and destroying rooms, alongside impressions of a streetlight or interrogation light. The use of the gods in the theatre, by the cast, added an exciting element to the immersive staging, introducing new heights from which audience members were pointed out to be flirted with, or asked for a light at their own peril. The interval gave rise to an ’80s disco for the cast and audience put on by DJ Bisto (Ronan Lenane) – who brilliantly advertises his versatile jockeying skills with hip thrusts and a resumè of bar mitzvahs and funerals.
Director Moses Brzeski-Reilly’s Road offers commentary on the need for community in harsh times, a difficult tone, which is injected with unending energy and accuracy by the cast throughout. Each character has their moment of reflection, against the backdrop of economic abandonment, their protest against which is at times literal, but always present. Ultimately, however, it is Brzeski-Reilly’s direction which capitalises on the experiential, social relevance of this play, and pointedly turns a mirror on our own times.
Image by Andrew Morris Photography via Bedlam Theatre.