Being an adult these days is a clear and obvious nightmare, but imagine being a teenager in 2017. It’s a world where your every faux pas becomes fuel for the merciless self-esteem furnace of social media, and where the perpetuation of unhealthy body image turns confident kids into nervous wrecks.
And that’s the case if, like one third of the cast of ‘Natives’, you’re lucky enough to be from the rich end of the social spectrum. How does the adolescent experience compare in a war-torn nation where homosexuality is punishable by death? Or Middle England, where lads are raised on hardcore pornography and free-streaming violence?
That’s the question at the heart of this smart, pacy production from Boundless Theatre – written by former i-D editor Glenn Waldron – which guides us through the personal dilemmas of three circumstantially diverse young’uns.
As you’d probably expect, technology – and especially video sharing – is at the root of most of their problems, although ‘Natives’ wisely steers itself away from cautionary tale territory. Projections that beam down onto the elevated, catwalk-esque traverse help to bring to life a mindset defined by emojis and hashtags.
An intriguing and surprising insight into millennial angst, ‘Natives’ inspires sympathy for a generation that’s wrongly perceived as invincible. More importantly though, an accessible script and innovative staging makes sure its message resonates across generations.