So Young
★★★★☆ Pointed
Traverse (Venue 15): Thu 25 Jul – Sun 25 Aug 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
So Young by Douglas Maxwell, the Traverse co-production with Raw Material and the Citizens, is a sharply observed, profound and beautifully acted piece of theatre.
Long-married couple Liane (Lucianne McEvoy) and Davie (Andy Clark) spend the evening visiting Milo (Nicholas Karimi), whose wife Helen – Liane’s closest friend – died three months previously.
They are expecting to have to comfort Milo in his grief as well as sharing a takeaway, so are somewhat surprised when Milo introduces a new partner, Greta (Yana Harris), who at 20 is 25 years younger than he is.
Nicholas Karimi, Yana Harris, Andy Clark and Lucianne McEvoy in So Young. Pic Aly Wight.
This shapes up to be one of those four-handed plays where an apparently civilised dinner party starts to degenerate into behaviour that presages the downfall of civilisation
Although there is an element of that, Maxwell is far too clever to go too far down that road. Characters are finely drawn, relationships and backstories are drip-fed in a quite brilliant way, judgements are quite definitely withheld, and there are big laughs.
The setting of 2021 means that COVID is referenced more successfully than in the (surprisingly few) plays that have so far addressed it, without being the centre of the drama.
unshowy but extremely effective
Greta isn’t it all what you might expect, being self-possessed, rather wise (if somewhat ingenuous) and in many ways the most grown-up of all of them. Harris’s performance is an unshowy but extremely effective one. The character of Milo is something of a blank slate, with it being left entirely up to the audience to decide if he is a fool, overcome by grief or entirely sincere; Karimi manages the balancing act necessary for this with real skill.
Lucianne McEvoy, Andy Clark, Yana Harris and Nicholas Karimi in So Young. Pic: Aly Wight.
In truth, however, it isn’t that relationship that holds centre stage, but that of Liane and Davie. Clark is excellent at both evoking rumpled disappointment and nailing a gag. McEvoy, meanwhile, runs the gamut of all the emotions associated with grief, and more besides, fairly blazing across the Traverse stage in a performance whose strength could unbalance many productions.
This could never happen under Gareth Nicholls’s direction here, however, which is judged and paced to perfection. It is rare indeed to see an ensemble that can do anger, resentment and drunkenness in a way that is not sensationalised or just played for laughs. Not that such things dominate proceedings; it just shows people acting the way that people tend to do.
cherish
Kenny Miller’s impressive multi-level set is brilliantly used, with transitions between scenes handled expertly, thanks in no small part to Kate Bonney’s lighting.
What emerges is a portrait (sometimes funny, sometimes sad) of how we relate to all the people we cherish in different ways – and of how we grow old, how we fall apart, and how we try to put things back together when we do.
Running time: One hour and 20 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre (Traverse 1), 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED (Venue 15)
Thursday 25 July – Sunday 25 August 2024
Various times (see website for details)
Details and tickets: Book here.
Traverse website: Further details.
Nicholas Karimi with Andy Clark in So Young. Pic: Aly Wight
ENDS
