Best of Enemies/Kids

For their Spring production the society decided to put on an evening of two one act plays allowing younger members of the group to gain more acting and directorial experience.

Best of Enemies

This is a powerful, gritty and violent tale of gang culture set in a Scottish inner city. Fraser, the overbearing leader of the gang, has escaped from prison and is looking to find out who grassed him up for the stabbing of his friend Rab the previous year. The story is told through a series of scenes interlaced by monologues by each character. Ben Mortimer as the bullying Fraser gave an extremely powerful and menacing performance as he interacted with each of the other gang members. Charlotte Johnstone gave an excellent performance as Lexy, the teenager forced into prostitution to make ends meet. The scene after she is raped and battered by Fraser was particularly effecting. Strong performances too were given by James Jackson as Rab the victim of the first stabbing, Robyn Lean as Delia the level-headed influence and Dominic Myers as Bugs the boy who is always picked on until in the final moments of the play is forced to resort to violence to stand up to the bully. An excellent handling of this dark storyline by the young actors, who had the added pressure of performing the world premiere of the piece in front of the author.

Kids

This was an amusing piece based on the premise that all children are born intelligent, but that by the time they can effectively communicate, they have forgotten the information or had it knocked out of them. So there was a link between the two pieces of bullying though in Kids it is of a more childish, unintentional kind. All the children are played by adults suitably attired in children’s clothing. The play is set in a play park and the simple set included a working swing and a climbing frame made of colourful building blocks. Mawgan Lean played the uber-intelligent Baby, complete with nappy, egging on his older brothers 3 year old Johnny (played by Dominic Myers) and 5 year old Sam (played by Aidan Hyndman) to get their older sisters 7 year old Wendy (played by Gemma Pirie) and 9 and a bit year old Ellie (played by Kirsty Weir). All the actors were very strong and the fun they were having on stage transferred easily to the audience judged by the laughter.

Well done to all involved for an evening of contrasting but thought provoking plays.

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