Boyega’s a trouper, but lacks force
Theatre Woyzeck Old Vic THANKS to his success playing the klutzy, headstrong renegade stormtrooper “Finn” in Star Wars: The
Force Awakens, John Boyega has an international reputation, a vast army of fans, and a very bright future.
So, huge credit must go to this charismatic 25-year-old for refusing to do the obvious thing and idly let the drum-beat of anticipation surrounding
The Last Jedi, the franchise’s new instalment due in December, be the dominant soundtrack to his career.
He has taken his first theatrical leading role in a new version of Georg Büchner’s notoriously dark, experimentally daring drama Woyzeck (unfinished at the time of the author’s death in 1837). In it, he plays a young soldier driven to insane violence by sexual jealousy and a bizarre medical trial – and it is the stuff of left-field adventurism and admirable loyalty to his (south) London roots.
To have stepped out on stage the night after the horrific events in Manchester, als deserves applause.
What a trouper, then, but alas he doesn’t storm it – at least there’s nothing here of the revelatory order of his big-screen breakthrough. We’re promised what sounds like a memorable shocker: “Strong language, nudity and sexual content,” runs the advisory (“I can’t compare it to Star Wars whatsoever!”, he has protested in interviews; though in fact you can, given the obvious rough parallels between the characters, lowly servicemen both).
While there is indeed a lot of swearing, full-frontal male nudity – not from Boyega but fellow actor Ben Batt, winning “rear of the year” award as a randy fellow “grunt” – and a hinterland of infidelity and sexual abuse, the dramatic force is not strong in this one.
Jack Thorne (of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fame) –has transposed the action to 1981 West Berlin, but flimsily so – rewarding period detail has been strictly rationed.
Boyega’s externally macho littleboy-lost nurses unspecified trauma from a tour of duty in Belfast. He is at first considerate, protective, flirty with his Irish Catholic wife (Sarah Greene, likeably no-nonsense) as they cope with poverty as well as the dual smelly hardships of raising a baby and living above a halal abattoir.
The eventual descent into Othellolike ire, after the interval, is nicely delineated with a lurching Boyega gobbling pills, guzzling washingpowder (don’t ask), whacking himself in the face and pummelling his perceived love-rival. What occurs in between, though, has a padded, patchy quality – much like the grey, entrailseeping chunks of wall that are forever being lowered and raised in Joe Murphy’s moodily lit production.
I enjoyed Nancy Caroll as a predatory, horsey officer’s wife and Steffan Rhodri as her thoroughbred (thoroughly barking) hubby.
However, the star attraction himself, though a delight at times, could do with a little more light in his sabre.
Until June 24. Box office: 0844 871 7628 oldvictheatre.com