Playwright Gary Owen's programme note
acknowledges inspirations ranging from
To Kill A Mockingbird to programmes
of restorative justice, but at its core is a more basic archetype: the
buddy story. This is a play about two radically different personalities
thrown together by force of circumstance, who at first infuriate each
other but gradually learn greater wisdom and humanity from one another.
In this case, Mrs Reynolds is a cantankerous woman in late middle age
and Jay, the ruffian, has been ordered by the court to make good the
damage done to her garden when he broke in; the single session of
penance becomes several, the basis of their meetings shifts to a
voluntary one and Jay becomes committed to helping Mrs Reynolds make
their city street a less ugly place by painting and repainting a
graffiti-ridden wall, planting and replanting items of greenery.
Brigid Larmour's production strives a little too hard to establish the
stereotypes before modifying them: in the initial scenes Trudie
Goodwin's Mrs Reynolds is too shrill, Morgan Watkins' Jay too deviously
menacing and even the court official a caricature of well-meaning
gormlessness. However, the portrayals settle down into a more
reasonable register, with Watkins especially dealing well with the
range of material given him, from the take of childhood suffering to
his constant vein of street sardonicism. The final two scenes of Act
One put Jay through the wringer, and demonstrate Owen's awareness that
the affirmation and even sentimentality of the play need to be
regularly tempered with not just quirkiness but genuine unpleasantness
from one or other of the antagonists. Goodwin, for her part, enjoys her
liberation from the near-saintliness of Sergeant June Ackland, the
character she played in TV's
The Bill
for over 20 years.
The classic buddy tale of course ends with one partner or other dying,
or at least beginning the process of dying if they hadn't already been
about it when the action began. This is no exception, though in a nod
to discretion I shan't reveal who undergoes what or how. By this stage,
naturally, the motif of the horticultural season cycle has been
established, and we know that renewal of one sort or another will
inevitably occur. This is not prime Owen, but it fills a couple of
hours effectively enough.
Written for the Financial
Times.