The Breach by Naomi Wallace (review)

Reviewed by: The Breach by Naomi Wallace Erica Stevens Abbitt THE BREACH. By Naomi Wallace. Directed by Sarah Frankcom. Hampstead Theatre, London. May 12, 2022. In an era of social crisis in Britain and the United States, this production of Naomi Wallace’s provocative coming-of-age drama The Breach marked a series of firsts. It was the first time this award-winning British-American playwright had been featured at London’s Hampstead Theatre, despite its ongoing commitment to innovative drama. It was the first production for this venue directed by Sarah Frankcom, known for her fearless dedication to contemporary playwrights during her tenure at the Manchester Royal Exchange. It was also The Breach’s English-language premiere. Ironically, this play, written by a Kentucky native, and commissioned by the Actors Theatre of Louisville, was firmly rejected for production by a number of American stages. In France, where translations of Wallace’s play are popular, and her Obie-award-winning drama One Flea Spare is in the permanent repertoire of the Comédie-Française, The Breach received its world premiere (as La Brèche) in a critically-acclaimed production at the 2019 Avignon Festival. (A Québécois version of La Brèche was performed in Montreal in 2021, and the play has recently been translated into German.) Set in Kentucky in 1977 and 1991, The Breach dramatizes the lives of four people—first as teenagers, and then, for the three of them who survive into adulthood, as grown-ups—as their youthful dreams collide with the realities of a country ravaged by the Vietnam War and the destructive impact of Reaganomics. The central figure is feisty sixteen-year-old Jude (Shannon Tarbet, a standout in a powerful cast). She fiercely guards her geeky, brainiac younger brother Acton (Stanley Morgan), carving out a basement sanctuary in their blue-collar home, where their hard-working widowed mother scarcely ever sets foot. When Acton is mercilessly bullied at school, he seeks protection from rich kid Hoke (Alfie Jones), and his eager sidekick Frayne (Charlie Beck). Thirteen years later, when the adult Jude (Jasmine Black-borow) returns to town after Acton’s suicide, she reunites with a grown-up Hoke (Tom Lewis), now CEO of his father’s pharmaceutical company, and a wary, chastened Frayne (Douggie McMeekin), still trailing in Hoke’s wake. As the past and present intersect, secrets are revealed, and troubling questions resurface: Did the boys drug and rape Jude on the night of her seventeenth birthday with her brother’s consent? Or were they tricked by the siblings into a promise of protection for Acton and a lifetime of guilt? Was a crime committed—and, if so, who were the victims? And what happens next? In the Hampstead production of The Breach, the cast members encircled each other in a series of scenes moving fluidly across time and place. Frank-com honoured the playwright’s stage directions to embody wild moments with still bodies, which meant that actors appeared to hover on the edge of disturbing encounters. This approach (ably assisted by choreographer Jennifer Jackson) worked best with the younger performers, who vibrated with barely-repressed energy as they paused, almost in mid-flight, to speak of their father’s fatal fall or the shocking arrangement to trade access to Jude’s body for Acton’s survival. In the older actors, this risky technique was only fully realized near the end, when Blackborow (as the adult Jude) stood quietly, almost transfixed, delivering a joyful speech about the new life she planned with her daughter. Supporting the productive tension between gritty realism and the surreal, dream-like nature of this [End Page 85] Click for larger view View full resolution Shannon Tarbet (Jude) in The Breach. Photo: Johan Persson. [End Page 86] Click for larger view View full resolution Stanley Morgan (Acton), Douggie McMeekin (Frayne), Jasmine Blackborow (Adult Jude), Shannon Tarbet (Young Jude) in The Breach. Photo: Johan Persson. disturbing narrative, Naomi Dawson created a minimalist set, both intimate and dangerous. Deftly lit by Rick Fisher, with a soundscape by Tingying Dong evoking the anarchic undertones of an American generation in transition, the performance space reinforced the play’s...

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