Days Of Significance at the Tricycle is a new play by Roy Williams. It was written as part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival and inspired by Much Ado About Nothing. It is a contemporary story of a working class group of young friends whose lives are changed when two of them, Ben and Jamie, head out to Iraq for tours of duty.
Days Of Significanceis in no sense a modern version of Shakespeare’s comedy although it borrows several of his ideas. In Shakespeare’s time ‘nothing’ was pronounced ‘noting’ and one meaning of ‘noting’ was ‘to overhear’. Misinterpretation of overheard information drives the plots of many dramas (especially soaps) and it is a key device in Roy Williams’ vicious, visceral 90-minute play.
There is no interval and scarcely any break in the searing intensity of the subject matter, language and violence. Gangs of guys and girls get drunk, get off and get angry with each other in a ferocious storm of alcohol, expletives and exhibitionism that makes Eastenders look like Songs of Praise. In other words: the play is set in any English town on any Saturday night. Scenes and exchanges that seem shocking when seen on stage are available for free just by stepping out of the Tricycle and onto Kilburn High Road (and Press Night was a Tuesday). Newspapers are fond of describing city centres at closing time as ‘war zones’ and it is startlingly appropriate when the action switches from Britain to Basra with no set change required.
So many facets of human nature are skilfully explored by a tightknit ensemble cast in this unrelenting production that it is extremely difficult to decide what the play is ‘about’. Several Shakespearian themes suggest themselves: Friendship, Love, Betrayal and War are just the big ones.
The real Hero is soldier Jamie’s girlfriend Hannah, magnificently portrayed by Claire-Louise Cordwell, because her journey is the longest. All the other characters are trapped in their tiny tribal world; it is only Hannah who has the courage not only to pass beyond the boundaries of her class and sexuality but to return more or less in one piece.
The most moving moment in a harrowing hour and a half is a simple kiss between Jamie and Hannah just before Jamie goes off to war. Amidst the madness they find a world of their own that nobody can overhear.
Days of Significance finished at the Tricycle on 29 March 2008. Watch for further RSC/Tricycle productions later this year.
