Salvador Kent
I was pitched this one off-the-cuff and it seemed up my street. What a thrill when something is! Written, co-directed by and starring Alex Grech Awaiting Evaluation is a straight-talky-play pulled off remarkably well. It is in some ways very Secret History, very Dead Poets Society and drawing from depictions of United States private schools. You can picture an old building with rich fields, woodland. Ali and Sydney are stuck outside the principal’s office waiting for a potential punishment due to their climbing the school chapel.
It is most derivative, almost a little too derivative of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. The structure of that play can be mapped straight onto this one. Alwigi and Sydney are Ali and Sydney, as Vladmir and Estragon are Didi and Gogo. Mr Hamilton is this play’s Pozzo, Bentley the Lucky, and then the secretary Sharon is much like the boy.
What makes it works is that Grech has found a really interesting aspect of adolescence that can be conveyed by the form of Godot – namely this idea that there’s a higher power forcing you into a submission. In Godot the nature of the titular character is beautifully opaque, here – whilst the principal does not emerge, the power is all too real. Mr Hamilton and Sharon are both tyrants to these boys, and their power is nicely played by Michael Thomas Jenkins (in his last performance) and Frances Bisaillon. Jenkins is much more aggressive than Bisaillon, but the core idea that they have authority and the boys don’t is nicely conveyed.
Sid and Ali are soulful creatures – they climb onto the rooftop and see into the horizon, they talk philosophy and ‘ancients’ in a bookish but unpretentious way. It’s a testament to Grech that the characters are so likeable, despite their flaws they’re trying to be good. And, they’re dealing with the fact that sometimes the institutions that demand respect from us, the first of which is the high school — are sometimes not so good.
Carson S. Davis is remarkable as Sydney, just a really beautiful and subtle performance. His brain is analytical to the point that he analyses suicide by hanging (another call to Godot), but he is also wonderfully poetic – he imagines Diogenes climbing the chapel with them. Alex Grech plays Alwigi nicely, although the levels of the two boys are never consistent leading to a strange sense of uneveness – still, this is minor quibble and they both hold this wordy play nicely. Henry Alper is a wonderfully physical Bentley, barking and dashing about the stage – it’s maybe the most fun role in the play, and he relishes in it.
It’s nice to see a talk-y play at Fringe done really well, and this one is. This company is young but extremely mature. It’s worth a watch while you’re out here. I hope they have many more shows on the horizon.
Recommended Drink: There’s only water as they wait, but one of these boys sneaked in a hip-flask for liquid courage. Maybe you ought to hide some brandy…
You can catch Awaiting Evaluation until 29 August at Greenside @ Riddles Court (Thistle Theatre) at 11.25 (60mins). Tickets available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Roe McDonnell
Hannah Hamilton
Tom Clayton
