StoneCrabs Theatre (www.stonecrabs.co.uk) presented Basic, by Lynn Greenwood, a psychotherapist formerly in Wormwood Scrubs prison (west London).

The poster, and other publicity material, for this play showed two very attractive, shirtless, young men. It probably attracted a fair number of young (and not so young) women, and the odd Gay man to Hackney Empire’s (www.hackneyempire.com) Studio theatre. I am an odd Gay man, but was attracted to the Studio (prepare for a steep climb) by the fact that Basic is set in a prison cell. The play is a ‘two-hander’. ASeany consumer of Her Majesty’s Prison services will know, two to a cell is five star accommodation. Cells designed in the middle of Victoria’s reign for one (usually male) person, are now three-, or even ‘foured-up’.

This is a very minor cavil, there are times in the course of the action where a third voice would be useful, but generally Lynn Greenwood’s script stands up. The performers, Femi Oyeniran (Charlie) and Chris Streeks (Ash) were more than competent. Femi Oyeniran had genuine star quality. You just want to look at him. (Fair enough, he is by anybody’s standards, a very handsome man. But there’s more to his ‘presence’ than that.)

The format of the play is: Charlie, a cocky, functionally illiterate, youngster is ‘twoed-up’ with the mature Ash, the product of a Public (meaning private) School education and of fundamentalist parents. His life, he tells Charlie, as their relationship warms into friendship, has been a loveless series disasters.

They share things, an education (learning to read) for Charlie, and a breath of energy and life (and some muscle in clashes with hard chaw cons) for Ash.

This explodes into tragedy when Charlie returns from a visit by a gangster from his locality, who was a school friend. And who is trying to get Charlie in on his lucrative drugs racket.

He imparts other information. Ash is a ‘nonce’, a ‘sex-case’. He is alleged to have had sex with a fifteen year old boy. The validity of this accusation is left open in the script, which makes the result that much stronger.

There is also an element of jealousy in the accusation. The boy in question was a brilliant student in a school where most kids (like Charlie) were counting the days until they could escape. Ash, his teacher, lavished time and trouble (and money for theatre tickets, among other things) on the person he is accused of forcing sex on.

After a confrontation Charlie beats Ash up – and in the process kills him. The character, a hope-to-be rap artist, raps out his future: a lifetime behind bars. Femi Oyeniran, looks at this point as if his soul has left his body. This was followed by a deafening silence on the part of the audience – then genuine, heartfelt, applause.

It would be unfair to imply that Chris Streeks was a cypher in this drama. His was, in some ways, a more difficult job than that of Femi Oyeniran. His character was, in essence,a buttoned-up bourgeois Englishmen, while Charlie (well fleshed-out as a character) is a known ‘type’.

There were some apparent oddities in the script, Charlie’s fluency in sending-up Ash’s vocabulary might seem unlikely, but suffering a modern British education does not necessarily kill off a feel for language. Another is the fact that Chris Streeks is taller and bulkier that Femi Oyeniran, though the younger character Charlie is more ‘physical’. His first action on entering the cell is a number of press-ups.

But Ash’s passivity rings true – his miserable, loveless life (and possibly guilt) has rotted his soul. He might even welcome death.

Sitting a few rows back in a virtually non-raked auditorium, I did not see a lot of the fight, but Haruka Kurada (www.harukakuroda.com) organised the beating very well. Lu Firth’s design was very good, but despite the smallness of the Studio did not really convey the claustrophobic feeling of a cell. I liked Dinah Mullen’s soundSeand Adam Crosthwaite’s lighting, though even in bright sunshine cells are not inviting, being painted with end-of-line colours. Vomit yellow and turd brown being the prevailing decor.

The Director was Franko Figueiredo (also something of a mentor to Lynn Greenwood), the Assistant Director is Gael Le Cornec (www.gaellecornec.com). They are both Brazilian, and their London Embassy is involved with StoneCrabs which is Brazilian in origin being based on the principles of Augusto Boal and others. Jo Strickland is Stage Manager.

Incidentally, neither Charlie nor Ash ‘disrobe’ in the course of the play. Another image used in StoneCrab’s publicity has them looking away from the potential audience, presumably into their cells (their souls?). It might have been more apt publicity – but would have discouraged people from coming to see Basic. ‘Photography’ is attributed to Marian Alonso

Basic is a well-acted, and produced play, there are some slightly creaky moments in the text. This is not a major criticism. The thing would probably work much better as a television drama.

[Se n McGouran]