Directed by Hope Wishart

Written by Kieron Barry

Review by Marina Funcasta

Drayton Arms Theatre

Stories for Boys is an exciting play because it refuses to be known. From its title to its structure, and between its two constantly fluctuating worlds, this production is as dynamic as it is unpredictable. At times, I felt like a child listening to a bedtime story—too immersed in its make-believe to fully process the depth of its subject matter.

Much of this effect is owed to the script’s absurdity. Kieron Barry deploys an interrupted form, slicing the dialogue of his “real” characters with the surreal interventions of a chorus of Players. Taking as its protagonists Asso, a donkey monarch, and Basso, their fish servant, the central plot follows their wanderings in the hour before Asso’s long-awaited wedding to the Turtle King. The tragedy lies in the pair’s mutually felt yet unexpressed love, which becomes increasingly painful as Basso repeatedly checks his pocket watch—as though the wedding hour were a death knell.

Death is a significant presence in the play. Embodied by the Players, mortality is interrogated through seemingly arbitrary episodic skits. Some are more bureaucratic than others, an effect heightened by May Kelley’s precisely designed, formally symmetrical costumes. Surely drawing inspiration from absurd interrogation scenes of mid-century plays such as The Birthday Party, these skits provide the production’s sharpest comedy. It is here that Lewis Blomfield’s contemptuous wit shines brightest, well-balanced by Thelma Solea’s explosive vitality. In a memorable yoga sequence, their contrasting acting styles prove as complementary as they are distinct, producing a hilarious moment of dramatic irony.

Samuel Farrer and Adam Barlow also come into their own as the boundary between the Players’ world and that of Asso and Basso begins to dissolve. Initially, these spaces are carefully distinguished through lighting and sound, designed with meticulous execution by Barnaby Booth and Helena Skiera respectively. This is an example of the production’s wider aesthetic vision, realised gracefully by director Hope Wishart and scenographic designer Enza Klim. Notably, this is not the pair’s first collaboration; having co-founded Mycelium Theatre Company earlier this year, they already demonstrate a profound comfortability in their own style, weaving moments of tangible darkness with intangible lights in ways which feel closer to poetic story-telling than theatrical representation.

Indeed, the production stretches a white carpet into peripheral darkness, punctuated by scattered light bulbs that create a starry-night landscape. Dreamlike, whimsical, and utterly charming, the design renders Asso and Basso’s deliberations on love as fragile as a cloud suspended in a stormy sky. This delicacy is most apparent in moments of stillness, particularly a shadow-puppet sequence narrated with glossy charm by Farrer and Barlow. It is here that the poetry emerges, and perhaps why I felt so sentimental upon leaving this defiantly non-naturalistic world. Yet the effect is not without its drawbacks. The depth of the stage occasionally swallows the Players, their comedy disappearing into the theatre’s shadows. While this distance contributes to their uncanny, creature-like quality, it sometimes makes emotional connection more difficult. Nevertheless, the decision to remove the back screen and expose the theatre’s full depth is inspired. The surrounding darkness enhances the eeriness of the Players’ scenes, while the exposed walls invite us to excavate the darker corners of our own fears of death.

Stories for Boys is a delight. Barry’s script establishes the conditions for enchantment, but it is the design team that truly allows the production to take flight. At times restless, at times exhilarating, its buoyancy carries us through waves of comedy and tragedy, as well as the brief, intimate pauses in between—a little like life itself.

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