Low

Emma (Veronica Thomas) and Jay (Matthew Connell) are young, down and out lovers, locked in a kind of co-dependency.  Jay had a factory job, but it didn’t suit him.  They sit in pubs.  Not a lot to say to each other - which can drive Emma crazy.  They’re bored.  And broke.  They turn to crime, robbing small stores late at night.  Jay threatens the shopkeepers with a small knife, then a bigger knife… It’s thrilling.  In different masks, they go on a spree and become bottom-of-page-4 famous. 

Keene’s text is well realised here.  Director Jennifer Sarah Dean makes good use of the challenging Explosives Factory space (a big room with no stage per se, chairs on three sides) and Chelsea Neate’s low-rent set.  Neate’s costumes, too, make their point - particularly the different masks Emma and Jay use in their robberies and the characters’ attempts to dress up.  Thomas Kunz’s ominous sound design of the city with its sirens and traffic adds tension and Kris Chainey’s lights ease the transitions between the many scenes.

Some might say, however, that Low - written 1990 - is ‘dated’, so why revive it?  Back then we were in the midst of a recession. In fact, sadly, these underclass characters don’t  seem that dated - despite claims now of near full employment. Low plays just as well as a contemporary drama - even if the way Emma is so in thrall to Jake might annoy contemporary women.  The way Emma says, ‘I love you’ before each robbery is touching and believable, and it’s sad too when Jay demands angrily, ‘Why do you always say that?’  What a fool he is.

In twenty-eight ‘poems’ or, on stage, scenes, Keene and these two very good actors, under Jennifer Sarah Dean’s direction, create plausible, recognisable characters.  The question is whether these characters can hold our interest for ninety minutes?  Whether by social circumstance (to be inferred) or by Daniel Keene’s propensity for pathos, Emma and Jay are very limited characters.  That may well be ‘real’ - but is it insightful, or entertaining?  We are meant, or even obliged, to care about these desperadoes, but why?  Emma is occasionally moving, but we get frustrated with her as she goes on loving this empty, drunken - and indeed vicious - overgrown boy.  When they have money, they talk about buying a car.  They don’t.  Emma talks about a holiday.  They don’t go.  All Jay wants is the adrenaline rush of their crimes.  We know what’s coming and, I confess, I became impatient for it.

Publicity for this production refers to Bonnie and Clyde - that is, I think, the 1967 Arthur Penn movie.  And there are tangential touches such as Jay getting off on being ‘famous’, but it’s a thin comparison.  Bonnie is a lot more interesting than Emma, and Clyde adores Bonnie. Despite the best and impressive efforts of cast and creatives, perhaps this revival was not the best choice.

Michael Brindley