PPP: Detained
★★★★☆ Heartfelt
Traverse: Tue 22 – Sat 26 Oct 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Detained, the final instalment in the Traverse’s autumn season of offerings from from Òran Mór’s Play, Pie and a Pint, is a thoughtful and incisive piece of theatre.
Michelle Chantelle Hopewell’s first professionally produced play is the story of two Black women, Bea (Laura Lovemore) and Yemi (Titana Muthui). Yemi has been arrested and thrown in a detention centre after overstaying her working visa, and is unwilling to say exactly why she cannot return to South Africa for fear of endangering others. Bea, meanwhile, has been brought up in Scotland unaware of politics, and oblivious to the effects on others of her cheerfully well-meaning but ultimately self-absorbed actions.
Laura Lovemore in Detained. Pic: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
The play says a great deal about the dehumanising, degrading and destructive effects of the UK’s catastrophic asylum system, which has been further worsened by successive governments’ populist rhetoric and shameful ‘othering’ of those caught up in it.
As well as addressing important questions, the play features dialogue that is both heartfelt and punchy, with the characters and their fractured friendshipskilfully drawn.
However, there is an unfinished air to proceedings. The play barely lasts forty minutes, consists of a series of short scenes, and – after introducing the characters and their back stories with real economy – does run out of steam.
lifted
The production is lifted considerably, however, by Caitlin Skinner’s direction. What could be an overly static and talky affair is given real energy and commendable variation.
The performances, meanwhile, are outstanding. Yemi is subject to almost inexpressible torment and sadness, but Muthui embodies this superbly. Lovemore is simply brilliant; it is difficult to imagine one scene, a phone conversation where we only hear one side, done any better.
Heather Grace Currie’s design is one of those PPP efforts that is functional and also says a lot in a small space. Mark Gillespie’s sound design opens the play superbly, but is then underused – something that is symptomatic of a production that has slightly less impact than its excellent first few minutes would suggest. Nevertheless, in dramatic, political and human terms it still works extremely well.
Running time: 40 minutes (no interval)
Traverse, 10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED.
Tue 22 – Sat 26 Oct 2024
Lunchtimes: 1pm (Trav 2).
Tickets and details: Book here.
Titana Muthui and Laura Lovemore in Detained. Pic: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
ENDS
