The Trials - Donmar

[nottobe]

Running from August 12th-27th at the Donmar. In the cast are Joe Locke and Will Gao who are in Netflix's 'Heartstopper'. Personally not seen the show and not too fussed about the play but I am sure this will be a tough ticket. 


booking.donmarwarehouse.com/events/8201APNKPTCPSVLMMRDKJCTKBHRDCGHGR?_ga=2.136636208.1642884088.1656417752-1495393207.1655048515

[imstillhere]

This suddenly just became a hot ticket.

[fiyerorocher]

Half of the fans of Heartstopper are probably under the age guidance... How traumatised are these kids going to be when they go see it anyway?

[n1david]

Just booked Priority Tickets for this - the 16th and 17th are off sale (showing as 'Sold Out') so there are only 14 performances in total on sale. First date I chose (midweek, week 2) only had circle seats available but second date I chose had a few scattered around the stalls and got decent side seats (let's hope it's a designer who's actually seen the inside of the Donmar before opening night).

Rejoined the Donmar for this as OH works in the area of Climate Change/Adaptation so was keen and reckoned membership was my only chance for tix...

[fiyerorocher]

Wasn't this the show that was supposedly casting their younger cast members through community outreach channels to give people chances who wouldn't usually have access to typical routes into the business?? Absolutely nothing against Joe Locke or William Gao, but with contracts signed for two more seasons of a netflix show, I think they're probably as set as one could possibly be when it comes to careers in showbiz...

[n1david]

I guess this explains why tickets on general sale are so limited:

[Dave B]

Reasonably easy booking process. Queue very fast and a couple of mid-range tickets booked for us.

[Dave B]

Jul 1, 2022 9:06:44 GMT n1david said:

I guess this explains why tickets on general sale are so limited:

Yes! This nearly caught me out. I clicked through and one preview showed a lot of cheap tickets - happy days says I... until the checkout process and *then* it says Under 30 only.

[NeilVHughes]

Reasonably easy, no issues with the date and the mid price tickets I wanted.

There appeared to be plenty of under 30 tickets available for the date I wanted and at £10 well worth a punt if you are young enough to take advantage.

[lichtie]

Was expecting a bit more hassle but got decent priced ticket for the one day I could make this, so I'm happy. Not many of the ultra-cheap tickets for the under 30s left for that day either.

[Steve]

Thank goodness they kept back tons of tickets for the public sale.

I'm not missing Nigel Lindsay!

Also, Heartstoppers is terrific.

[jaqs]

Was late logging in but had no issue finding a seat.
Looking forward to it.

[NorthernAlien]

Had to wait until lunchtime to boot up the website, but managed to get a ticket for one of the four performances I can make! I'm terribly excited because it's the first time I've ever been able to obtain a ticket for *anything* at The Donmar - everything usually seems to go within seconds of being on sale!

(And there were very few tickets left for us 'over 30's' by the end of yesterday, if anyone is still considering it...)

[theoracle]

First show tonight. 1hr 35mins no interval according to the website. Will be there tomorrow - practically sold out now across the short run. Anyone going tonight at all?

[Mark]

Aug 12, 2022 10:56:50 GMT theoracle said:

First show tonight. 1hr 35mins no interval according to the website. Will be there tomorrow - practically sold out now across the short run. Anyone going tonight at all?

Dang, I booked a matinee thinking it would be a long one!

[jamb0r]

Managed to get a ticket for this yesterday for the corresponding performance the following week using their daily release scheme:

DONMAR DAILY RELEASE means there are tickets available for our productions every day. A small allocation of tickets priced from £10 – £45 will be released every morning, Monday – Saturday, at 10am for performances seven days later. Book online or call the box office on 020 3282 3808. Please note these won't be available for performances on 16, 17 and 27 August at 7.30pm.

If anyone is looking for a ticket I'd suggest continually refresh the page with the seat map on it from about 9:57am - yesterday they released a handful of seats at 9:58am at various prices.

[theoracle]

So I got to see this last night and realised I saw Dawn king’s Ciphers years ago when I was doing my drama GCSE! Whilst I certainly enjoyed this far more, there are few niggles that had with this. I think the blocking wasn’t great for this, especially in a space like the Donmar, I was surprised by how often backs were turned towards the central block and the set in general wasn’t the most inspiring. Cast wise, I thought everyone was very good but the defendants were the most compelling - I think they were very lucky to have 3 pretty distinguished actors for this with Lucy Cohu, Nigel Lindsay and Sharon Small all delivering very convincing monologues.

The concept was certainly interesting and it felt very timely given that we’re in the middle of a heatwave and the US just passed landmark climate change legislation. The jurors had their own distinct personalities and bounced off each other well. There was enough change of reaction to the three defendants to keep this interesting but if there was a fourth, it might’ve started to get tiring.

As for Joe Locke and Will Gao, I hope they come back to the theatre again as they seemed to have settled well into the show. I think Joe’s character Noah’s change of heart at the end was a little sudden though and not very well explained/justified. He’s very angry throughout the first hour and then suddenly softens. Both look a little older than some of the cast and clearly drew a much younger audience than the Donmar are used to. Crowds swarmed the entrance at the end hoping to catch them - it looks like stage door is a thing again?

Overall, I thought this was very good albeit imperfect. Maybe it’ll pop back up somewhere again in the future as this is a very short run. I reckon schools/colleges will want to stage this especially.

[Steve]

I also saw this last night, and I also saw Dawn King's Ciphers at the Bush, and Foxfinder at the Ambassadors, and of the three, I found this one the most compelling: a topical, thoughtful, involving and impactful piece of science fiction/ court room drama about climate change - "12 Angry Men" crossed with "Logan's Run," albeit it falls down as a piece about justice, tyranny and the legal process.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is a tale of one jury and three trials, for climate change related offenses, the defendants being an advertising corporate (Nigel Lindsay), a Green party supporting theatre writer (Lucy Cohu) and a penitent oil exec (Sharon Small).

If this is "Twelve Angry Teens," then our putative Henry Fonda, bent on giving the defendants a fair chance, is Francis Dourado's bleeding heart, Mohammed and our dour sour Lee J Cobb, bent on quickfire guilty verdicts, is Joe Locke's Noah (yes, the butter-wouldn't-melt Joe Locke of Heartstoppers is out for blood lol).

Unfortunately, Dawn King does not frame the case sufficiently for us to get a handle on how necessary and just the trials are, so it is impossible to know whether Mohammed or Noah is more in the right. After all, in a regular trial, the law would be clear, and the jurors' only function would be to understand and interpret it.

Here, none of the defendants broke the law of the time (now) they were living in, but in the future of the play, climate change has rendered the world unfit for habitation (to such a degree, that like in Logan's Run, just opening a door to the outside looks perilous), and the defendants must answer for their part in bringing this horror about.

That's all well and good, but King fails to frame the Trials:

(1) Is the point that the climate changed world can't sustain so many people, so a certain percentage must die, for the rest to live? If so, what is the percentage of total defendants that must die, as that would guide us on how many people need to be convicted?

(2) Or is the point that this is a punitive exercise, regardless, and climate change deniers and abusers must die whether or not they need to do so for the others to live? Certainly, this is how many of the jurors seem to frame the debate.

(3) Or, is this an exercise in building a society in which people who are useful should survive, even if they were previously climate change abusers?

Unlike in "Twelve Angry Men," these 12 teen jurors can seemingly take or leave any of these justifications for trying these defendants, with no exhortations from a dispassionate judge meting out a fixed legal framework, meaning it is the composition and prejudices of the jury that are actually paramount, and not what the defendants actually did. This is why the piece fails as a commentary on law, justice and tyranny.

Where the production succeeds in spades is in reminding us about climate change. Climate change is indeed wrecking the ability of humans and animals to live on this planet (I'm not worried about the planet, I'm sure it will do fine without us, as it did before we evolved lol), and for obvious reasons, we and our politicians are only ever focused on today and not tomorrow, so we are sleepwalking into a horrible future for our descendants. So, to have our descendants hold us to account in a play feels prescient and urgent.

My favourite performance of the night was given by Lucy Cohu, who plays the kind of Green voting, green cause promoting, theatre maker, who nonetheless uses lots of fossil fuels in travelling about lol. Cohu's impassioned defense of us, against our descendants, was furious and heartfelt and disturbing, and she presented the most perfect mirror for theatre-going types to see themselves, and wonder, is it really all the fault of Trump and Xi and Putin and Big Oil and the Gods of fossil fuels, as we may frequently say, or can we actually do a bit more ourselves lol? The fact that it was casually hotter yesterday than on most days of the infamous 1976 heatwave only made the play feel more urgent! Perhaps I'll forget all this again, when the heatwave abates, and book another holiday abroad, but I hope not.

As far as plays about climate change go, this one covers all bases of the debate, through it's many teenage avatars, with Charlie Reid's Tomaz being particularly amusing, who, like most of us, just lives day to day, and can't be bothered to think about any of it. In that sense, nothing ever changes, and Reid gives a memorable performance as a teen rebel in a world where teen rebels will probably end up cancelled, and he gets all the best lines lol.

Both Sharon Small and Nigel Lindsay were compelling in their respective roles as defendants, as was Honor Kneafsey as the jury foreman, William Gao as a juror more concerned with art and poetry and Mereana Tomlinson, as Kako, perhaps the most thoughtful of all the jurors.

All in all, as a piece on climate change, this was a million times more interesting and compelling viewing than that climate change lecture at the Royal Court in 2014, called 2071, which Billington awarded 5 stars.

This isn't well-enough crafted to merit 5 stars, as we have no way of knowing if Joe Locke's character is a burgeoning teenage Robespierre, or just talking common sense, but I happily give it four stars for making me think so much about climate change, without once being bored.

[fiyerorocher]

So what definitely happened is that Joe Locke's agent tried to find him a role as far away from Charlie Spring as possible so he's not typecast as huggable, sweet characters for the rest of his life. And thus he ends up as Noah, 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}
whose every third line is a swear word and who actively wants people to die because he's mad at the world.

And, all credit to him, he plays it rather well.

I concur with the above that Honor Kneafsey and Meréana Jean Tomlinson were standouts amongst the jurors. Charlie Reid also did a great job as Tomaz despite having some of the weirder material, as his comic timing was excellent. A few stood out as being weaker but considering how young they are it doesn't seem fair to name them. Great performances from defendants all round. The twist at the end was easy to see coming a mile away, though. But it was still played out pretty well.

And shout out to the weather, I suppose, for the immersive experience of the end of the habitable world.

[lonlad]

Saw it tonight and bit of a curate's egg, this one - needs a much firmer, steadier directorial hand than the one provided by Natalie Abrahami; I kept wondering what Rob Icke would have brought to it. As it is, the first third is dismayingly flat and very few of the jurors, alas, really show any theatrical muscle at all - Joe Locke is among the few (he's also got a good stage voice). Lucy Cohu is superb as she always is but the very end doesn't land and the whole thing feels as if it's not quite ready to open - which is a shame since it opens tomorrow.

[fiyerorocher]

Having considered this overnight, there are a few parts of the play itself that continue to bother me:





- Why are so many of them wearing layers? Does the costume designer not know the setting at all? I'm not sure we should trust the fate of the majority of the population with people who can't realise that the fact they're wearing three layers of clothing and fuzzy arm warmers is probably not helping with the fact they're hot (which is quite literally the first thing we establish in the play).


- The little romance plotline feels weirdly shoehorned in? I can understand the angle that they're teenagers and teenagers have misplaced priorities sometimes, but this is not a particularly good way of making that point.


- If, when you open a window, you immediately cannot breathe and need to reach for a dust mask? SHUT THE WINDOW. The fact they all tried to continue having a conversation for a few minutes when they couldn't talk for coughing was just ridiculous.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}
- As a group they seem pretty dedicated to following the rules, as evidenced by the fact they won't discuss the case without everyone present. So you're telling me there's no concrete rule saying you can't judge your own parents?? Seems like a massive oversight...

- Near the start there's a line where three of the kids compare their inhalers and notice, in some incredibly stilted dialogue, that they're different. This proceeds to never come up again. I was expecting some kind of relevance, perhaps that they're given different levels of medication because one is deemed worthier of survival than others and thus given more of a limited resource. Just anything rather than it never being mentioned again.

[NorthernAlien]

Aug 15, 2022 21:06:58 GMT fiyerorocher said:

So what definitely happened is that Joe Locke's agent tried to find him a role as far away from Charlie Spring as possible so he's not typecast as huggable, sweet characters for the rest of his life. And thus he ends up as Noah, 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}
whose every third line is a swear word and who actively wants people to die because he's mad at the world.

And, all credit to him, he plays it rather well.

I concur with the above that Honor Kneafsey and Meréana Jean Tomlinson were standouts amongst the jurors. Charlie Reid also did a great job as Tomaz despite having some of the weirder material, as his comic timing was excellent. A few stood out as being weaker but considering how young they are it doesn't seem fair to name them. Great performances from defendants all round. The twist at the end was easy to see coming a mile away, though. But it was still played out pretty well.

And shout out to the weather, I suppose, for the immersive experience of the end of the habitable world.

Interesting - I'm seeing this on the 25th, so I don't as yet have any opinions about the content...

...but I had looked at the cast, and, knowing nothing about the characters, already thought that Joe Locke's agent had done quite well here - given the number of people in the cast, none of them can surely have that big a role, and this is, on what is surely a technicality*, Joe Locke's "First Professional Theatrical Role" (according to the Donmar's website). It feels pretty low stakes, in terms of responsibility on his shoulders, gets him that first professional credit, and the Donmar has a good rep, so it all looks good on his CV.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}
But interesting to hear that it also broadens the roles the casting directors of London will have been able to see him in (because I'm assuming that on any given night, a solid % of the audience will be from The Industry - certainly the case according to my Social Media feeds!)

*He's done stuff on the Isle of Man, so whilst this might be his first professional role, it's not his first theatre acting experience. 

[fiyerorocher]

Oh yeah I'm not slating his agent at all. It's a very sensible thing to do and I do think Joe was good in the role so it's not like he was in any way miscast. Just a pretty different part than in Heartstopper! See also: his Heartstopper co-star just being cast in a what I'm judging at first sight as a Very Straight role in a film (adaptation of a YA book I have admittedly not read), presumably because he doesn't want to be typecast as queer parts for the rest of his life. They're both young actors and it makes sense to avoid being known for only one kind of part. I'm passing no judgement on either of them for it, it's just intersting to observe it playing out. Ultimately, despite Noah (Joe's character in the Trials) and Charlie Spring being very different characters, they're both queer teenage boys who have been hurt and aren't dealing with it particularly well. One of them just swears a lot more.

[Dave B]

Semi-random question, is there a standard Donmar programme available for this? The things to know email before our visit has a £2 digital programme linked and says the book is £7.50 which seems to suggest there might not be?

Thank you!

[fiyerorocher]

Aug 18, 2022 8:38:14 GMT Dave B said:

Semi-random question, is there a standard Donmar programme available for this? The things to know email before our visit has a £2 digital programme linked and says the book is £7.50 which seems to suggest there might not be?

Thank you!

Not that I saw. They were promoting the digital programme there and had the play scripts at the bars.