Rough Sleeper is the self-told tale of a homeless man who is busking, begging and sleeping in the doorway of a closed down high street store. The published synopsis places the story in an affluent South-Eastern City. However, the set is effectively a blank stage, a black floor against a white background, which cleverly situates the action both anywhere and everywhere. It reminds us throughout that while we're hearing a specific person's story, the experiences he recounts are more disturbingly universal.
The structure is basically that of a monologue, with our homeless protagonist addressing us as an audience directly. The actor (whose name unfortunately I can't find on the Youtube page on which the show streamed) did a very convincing job of balancing the pessimistic fatalism of someone ground down by the relentless discomfort of life on the street, with the glimpses of disbelief and optimism which spring from memories of his affluent past and his dreams of a happier future.
Occasionally other actors appear for brief interactions with our hero, and shine in little cameos including a green belt obsessed mother and a disapproving GP. The most interesting of these minor characters is the playwright, who comes on stage to ask the homeless man about his experience and in that manner effectively prods the whole play into being. I think this idea could have been played with much more creatively to generate a fresh and exciting new dramatic structure. Perhaps a negotiation between the playwright who wants to sculpt and shape the homeless man's life story into a conventionally satisfying narrative, and the homeless person who wrestles to keep control of his own story, including its coincidences, inconsistencies and failures. At present, without that sense of dramatic conflict, the piece feels a bit like agitprop, with a likeable, sympathetic, liberal-minded homeless man monologuing eloquently on the hassles, irritations and discomforts of his life.
Homelessness is a really important social issue and it's great to see it tackled by writer Jo Emery with such detail and sympathy. What's lacking however is plot. Young adult novels like Robert Swindell's Stone Cold remind us vividly how accomplished story tellers can generate immense sympathy for the homeless while simultaneously telling a gripping story. Rough Sleeper is a socially conscious piece of theatre that would benefit from a sense of narrative drive.
Thanks for the review - although I didn't know it was the critic's job to attempt to rewrite the playwright's play for them.... if I'd meant to write a dialogue I would have done so.. I wrote it as a monologue for a very good reason and it absolutely was not about having the playwright character try and change the MAN's narrative!! If the play is not what your idea of it should be, that's because you didn't write it! The narrative IS the gripping story... LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteNear the beginning of the play, before the MAN embarks on his story, the playwright asks if they can record it on their 'phone "to make it easier to write up later" (and thus edit, 'sculpt and shape' the story to their own requirements). Most Rough Sleepers just want to pour their hearts out, when they are willing to talk. It would have been inconsiderate and rude of the playwright to keep interrupting. The play is designed to be the narrative of the MAN's life, whilst highlighting the many reasons people end up homeless and reminding us that they are still human beings, after all, not a 'verbal battle' between two individuals. Every Rough Sleeper's got a story and this story is the driven narrative and plot of this person's life.
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