THE DAWN OF RECKONING
White Bear Theatre
★★★
“an interesting new play that grapples with big questions of what it means to be human”
In a claustrophobic hotel bar on a foggy night in London, two old university friends meet, some twenty-five years after they lost touch. As the piece unfurls, we learn that medical researcher Helena’s (Bryonie Pritchard) husband left her for her university friend, children’s illustrator Ruth (Jilly Bond), fracturing their previous relationship apparently beyond repair. The characters slowly realise that the apparently chance meeting was engineered by their late, shared (ex-) husband Tony for the reading of his will. The Dawn of Reckoning is a new play written by Mark Bastin and directed by Matthew Parker, that seeks to explore the enduring guilt of the missteps and misfortunes that mark our lives, as well as the enduring power of friendships forged in the early days of adulthood. It asks whether second chances are possible and how we can forgive ourselves and move on.
The two women strike a marked contrast, even down to their choice of nightwear, the no-nonsense Helena in comfortable-looking button-up blue pyjamas and the Ruth in a much more glamourous silken nightgown and turban, the work of production and costume designer Hannah Williams. Both Pritchard and Bond give strong performances, that range from an initial mutual wariness to moments of despair and a moving scene in which the women comfort one another. They are especially good at shared excitement when reminiscing about drunken nights out, capturing the ease with which we can all talk about a shared past in preference to confronting a more uncomfortable present, even if Helena is always only a few moments away from a withering barb. This simmering resentment is well conveyed by Pritchard, and Bond excels at Ruth’s morally superior attitude of forgiveness, by turns endearing and infuriating, to which Pritchard responds accordingly.
The play balances the darkness with moments of comedy, especially Helena’s repeated filling of her whisky glass from the unattended hotel bar, and when Ruth sets off the fire alarm by smoking a cigarette out of the window, allowing the women to return to an adolescent sense of mischief and complicity.
The sound design (Andy Graham) and lighting (Abigail Sage) counteract the realism of the narrative. Dimming bulbs, unsettling noises, the distinctly London sound of mating foxes, and the glowing fog outside the window inject a sense of the surreal into proceedings, as do moments of abstract choreography, where the characters move in a kind of synchronicity, gesturing both towards the increasing unreality of the situation and perhaps to their shared bond that goes deeper than words.
Narratively, The Dawn of Reckoning is complex, including multiple changes of direction and revelations that emerge over the relatively short runtime. Without giving anything away, some of these are successful, while others move towards the melodramatic, and the play’s climatic moments could perhaps have used a slightly longer lead-in to land more effectively. Nevertheless, this piece is an interesting new play that grapples with big questions of what it means to be human. Even if it does not always provide satisfying answers, it demonstrates a writer and director that are willing to let the script and acting take centre stage.
THE DAWN OF RECKONING
White Bear Theatre
Reviewed on 19th March 2026
by Rob Tomlinson
Photography by Rob Cheatley
