THE BREACH ★★★
Hampstead Theatre until June 4 Tickets: 020 7722 9301
Jude, 17, is the feisty breadwinner of a Kentucky family after her father died in an industrial accident and her mother worked herself to exhaustion.
She is fiercely protective of her young brother Acton who is a target for school bullies. His two friends and protectors are rich kid Hoke and his easygoing pal Frayn. The boys meet in a basement where they seal their friendship by sacrificing something they love in imitation of a fraternity house initiation. Being poor, Acton’s choices are limited and he makes a decision that has fatal consequences.
US dramatist Naomi Wallace’s play switches between 1977 and 1991 as it toys with the social fallout of the Vietnam War, the persuasive power of wealth and the unruly hormones of teenage boys.
Jude is the catalyst for a moment of shameful horror that is all the worse for being described rather than depicted.
As the surviving three meet up 14 years later, hidden truths are exposed only to reveal another set of truths beneath.
Sarah Frankcome directs with minimalism that deliberately sucks the drama out of the action, allowing the graphic language to do the heavy lifting.
Shannon Tarbet’s Jude is the fierce heart of the 1977 sequences which makes her moments of naked vulnerability all the more moving. Her 1991 self (Jasmine Blackborow) is more sanguine. Among the boys, Douggie McMeekin brings a hulking pathos to the older Frayne and Stanley Morgan’s Acton is nervously conflicted. Like a minor string quartet, the full impact doesn’t really hit you until it is over.