As titles go this takes the cake. (It’s a mathematics mnemonic.) We are in American high school territory. One Year Lease Theater Company's award-winning production of Kevin Armento’s new play thrilled audiences at its 2015 premiere off-Broadway at New York’s celebrated 59E59 centre.
The ‘typically beige’ math teacher confiscates her troubled student Red McRae’s mobile phone and, at home in the evening, can’t resist trawling through his texts and photos and accesses more of him than he can know. Red is coping with his divorced lush of a mom and distant dad. What’s a boy to do? Meanwhile the teacher is growing distant from her stay-at-home partner, Donald.
Teach and Red start an affair by text. How far will they go into the danger zone? Will mom or Donald find out? And if they do how will they react?
It’s a tale extremely well told with an ensemble cast of five (plus a musician) and some excellent, stylish staging (although the characters are a tad one-dimensional). There is energetic physical theatre in the mix and the writing is poetic, delivered in a kind of AK47 acappella soundblast where even the phones have voices which reflect on the action around them.
Director Ianthe Demos keeps the action taut although sometimes the morass of voices becomes overbearing and it seems a little quiet would be a welcome palate cleanser and, in turn, let the performances breathe.
Til 28 September, 12.50pm. £8-£12.