| On the Edge by Glenys Evans |
| First presented in 2006 by Theatr Iolo |
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synopsis: On the Edge is the story of an unexpected reunion between a school bully and his autistic victim. Dan, autsistic, hard working, takes people literally, he tells a good joke. Petal, a beautiful young woman, with ambitions to always be able to earn her own living. Bill, left behind by his old school mates, on a never ending 'Gap Year'. They meet as young adults in the workplace, where their past lives unravel as they both fall in love with the same person. The issues teachers may be drawn to explore are well suited to PSE, RE, English and Drama and they include: -bullying -difference, specifically Autism -emotional intelligence (E.Q) -making career and life choices as a young person. |
There is 1 review of Theatr Iolo's On the Edge in our database:
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On the Edge
by Glenys Evans
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[print] |
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venue on tour |
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February 12, 2006 |
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| This review first appeared in the Western Mail... Glenys Evans is not a playwright most of you will have heard of, although you might just recognise her face because she has been performing in South Wales for twenty years now and is also a talented cabaret singer. That’s because most theatregoers are not the audience Ms Evans writes for – and most of her acting has been for Hijinx Theatre, who take theatre to the community and make work with and for a wider community that doesn’t normally get included in the theatregoing experience, rather than for major companies beloved of the establishment. And what Ms Evans knows is her audience: what we might call individuals on the edge of society. In this case, in a quite remarkable play outstandingly presented by Theatre Iolo, people who engage with the condition of autism, but she has been writing plays for Hijinx for a while that inhabit the world of people with learning difficulties. (The label is, of course, unsatisfactory and has been the subject of much discussion of late: better than the American “retard” or the negative “disabled” but still inadequate to offer any notion of inclusiveness.) What informs Ms Evans’s plays is not simply empathy or understanding but a very special commitment to presenting characters as people whose behaviour, feelings, ambitions may not be those of the conventional bourgeois-theatre individuals. She can get inside characters who rarely are portrayed as rounded human beings on the stage. We are all different and in dealing in a straightforward way with someone with autism, say, as here, Ms Evans is being somewhat subversive: their value becomes the same as Hamlet or Othello or Shylock or Jimmy Porter’s – all social outsiders, of course – with no less respect and no hint of patronising. Indeed, in this three-hander it is the so-say “normal” young man, Bill, who is problematic – he is the one who has bullied Dan at school and continues to treat him as “funny” even though Dan is now Bill’s superior at work. And while Dan is the central character – a lad through whose eyes we start to understand the autistic vision – it is in a way Bill’s story as he tries to come to terms with his guilt and his own personal shortcomings. In between the two is Petal, someone who has no difficulty in liking Dan but is also attracted, despite his dishonesty and arrogance, to Bill. Within the confines of the burger bar where they all work the three enact a delicately-crafted drama of self-discovery. In storyline terms, On The Edge isn’t that different from Ms Evans’s earlier plays, like Roots and Wings – but this seems to me a quantum leap forward in terms of playwriting, with a more sophisticated language, denser, multi-layered, eloquent, ambivalent, open-ended. It benefits from an excellent production from Theatr Iolo, with spot-on performances from Stephen Hickman, Mark Sullivan and Anna Jones directed by Kevin Lewis, assisted by Glenys Evans, where quirky choreography and cool music is interwoven into a very moving drama. This company is consistently good and offers some of the best acting to be seen iu Wales – don’t let anyone tell you that community and Young People’s Theatre is less rigorous than main-stage work… or make them get to see On The Edge. Although I suspect this very special piece of theatre will mainly be presented to very privileged audiences. I saw it at Ysgol Plasmawr, where the company has been working to help deliver the PSE curriculum and supplements the show with workshops and where Autism Cymru has been collaborating with information and feedback. As a package it is an admirable educational resource, and covers moiré issues than autism – sexual morality, for example. But let’s not forget that at the core is a fine play that would stand alone, a piece of well-wrought work that deserves to be seen more. |
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| reviewer: David Adams |
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| If you know of any other existing review, or if you have any more information on On the Edge, (perhaps you were in the production or were the author or director) then please use the form below to send us the details |