Amid the blaze of publicity that accompanied ‘The Painter’, the relocated Arcola’s inaugural main house production, it would seem that the theatre’s second studio has been somewhat overlooked. Indeed, it was only after looking on the Arcola website to ascertain that there was still a second studio that I clocked the existence of ‘As We Forgive Them’.
This is a shame for Hull company Ensemble 52: Andrew Pearson’s production has won several awards on Northern soil, and if Richard Vergette’s tense two-hander isn’t perfect, it certainly deserves a bigger audience than the six in attendance the night I caught it.
Set in a high-security prison in the United States, the play traces an eight-year attempt by patrician politician John Daniels to teach his daughter’s killer – snarling, feral redneck Lee Fenton – how to read. Does he really believe in the redemptive power of education? Or is he making cynical political capital?
It’s a taut, compact piece that deals in shades of moral grey with admirable clarity. It’s also got an excessively revelation-packed final act that verges on the silly. But there’s recompense in Joe Sims’s electrifying Lee, a formiddable man mountain who blossoms from incoherent beast to sly emotional operator.