Whoever claimed that your school days were the best of your life was lying, as Kenneth Emson’s ‘Plastic’ so adroitly demonstrates. Meshed with rhyme, scoring poetry from the much-maligned Thames Estuary accent, ‘Plastic’ pounds too hard at the drama but manages to capture the turgid, stressful, high-stakes sensation of being a teenager.
‘Plastic’ follows Ben, Jack and Lisa, close friends who grew apart when puberty hit. Lisa is smart, popular and dating an older boy, Kev; Ben is the super-bullied class weirdo; Jack is his best mate, sticking by his side despite it all. One fateful day – we are left in no doubt that this is a classic one fateful day situation – the three of them bunk afternoon classes, with tragic consequences.
The narrative plays with chronology. Kev begins by narrating, but Lisa, Ben and Jack soon join him. As the story homes in on the fateful day tragedy, timelines fragment: Lisa gives us a collage of her future, Jack a collage of their past. The story radiates away from, then reconverges on the horror. But despite some compulsively watchable, savagely intense scenes – teenage years really are the pits – the essential violence and love at the heart of the play never fully convince.
Mark Weinman slips seamlessly between young, horny Kev and older, sadder Kev, but his on-stage character could be dispensed with without much harm to the story. Madison Clare is fantastic as Lisa, but the script has her carrying the simultaneous roles of believable teen girl, idealised memory and narrative catalyst while the boys go supernova around her with substantially less emotional subtlety.
Peter Small’s brilliant light design, where multi-coloured lightbulbs on overhead rails are swung, pulled and talked into by the characters, is immensely stylish but lacks explicit purpose. It’s the problem with ‘Plastic’ as a whole – confident, smart, even a little sparkling, but ultimately missing urgency.
BY: KA BRADLEY