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Joe Armstrong as Liam; Claire-Louise Cordwell as Helen; Jonathan McGuinness as Danny in Dennis Kelly’s Orphans |
Banquet of blood ties
ORPHANS
Soho Theatre
TO those already familiar with the work of Dennis Kelly, in whom a keen eye will discern a combination of commentator and sadist, it will not come as a shock to find his new play dressing itself in this season’s favourite headlines, adorned with the whiff of violence.
Orphans, at the Soho theatre, edifies with a lavish banquet of issues, from racism and knife crime to white working-class alienation, spiced with a thimbleful of the old nature-nurture argument. At least it’s quicker than reading all last year’s editorials one by one.
Happily for the audience, Mr Kelly’s far from negligible dramatic nous often thwarts this journalistic fetishising.
The result of the tussle is a brilliantly taut thriller that sensibly keeps its bland thematics in the background and the more interesting human tangle at its core.
Working-class couple-done-good Danny and Helen are embarking on a sashimi dinner when Liam, Helen’s brother, turns up out of the blue, covered in blood. He’s found a young Asian boy with stab wounds in the gutter outside.
Should they call the police?
Helen, concerned that Liam’s dodgy history will arouse suspicion, hesitates. Then Liam starts to revise his story, and Helen and Danny must choose between blood loyalty and their ideals.
Kelly’s stilted, won’t-quite-say-it dialogue style is plenty in evidence again. But the actors, with the superb Joe Armstrong leading the way as the alternately savage and wheedling Liam, successfully marry its staccato patterns to their characters.
Director Roxana Silbert makes the limited action punch its weight and ensures that the tension rarely drops below Cuban Missile Crisis levels.
It’s a highly polished effort, only rankling when the whodunit structure is suspended for state-of-the nation soliloquizing.
It’s a grave task to be this compelling. But Mr Kelly’s got skill in spades.
Until October 24
020 7478 0100 |
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