HIDE AND SEEK at the Park Theatre

★★★★

“a real testament to exciting new writing, a brilliantly well-constructed meditation on fantasy and reality”

Tobia Rossi’s tale of teenage exploration and alienation is a great new take on attraction across the divide. There are shades of Holden Caulfield in Louis Scarpa’s Gio, an awkward teenage theorist, whereas Nico Cetrulo’s Mirko is the polar opposite; popular, and growing into his own power. This is no Heartstopper-esque wholesome teenage love story and all the better for it.

The two boys are contemporaries at the same school, though definitely not friends. Mirko stumbles upon Gio, who is hiding in a cave in remote woods, kilometres from their Italian village where nothing exciting happens. Gio is inexpertly living like a hermit after having run away and cut himself off from the world, his last message a cryptic online post. Mirko is thrilled at his discovery, informing Gio of his infamy in the outside world. Gio pleads for Mirko to keep his hiding place secret, persuading him of the discontentment he experiences in the outside world. Mirko resolves to help him, and becomes an enabler, bringing Gio sustenance and companionship over their visits. As they become close, their talk turns to their fantasies, and they explore their sexualities, initially under the guise of helping Mirko ‘practice’ for girls.

Their conversations often revolve around local stories and gossip that have dogged Gio since he was small, resulting in him being a target for school bullies. These are slowly uncovered, and often play at the boundaries of innocence and darkness. Misinterpretation is also a major theme, sometimes willfully prompted as Gio’s cover up becomes ever more elaborate. This contrasts with Gio’s obsession with authenticity; there are delicious tensions between this and the construction of falsehoods that suit both characters.

Both Rossi’s story and Carlotta Brentan’s translation and direction have ensured the script is full of interesting circularity, really mining the most out of these ideas, with believably unsympathetic characters at the core. I particularly enjoyed the juxtaposition of Mirko’s self-help pseudo-intellectualism against Gio’s misguided teenage logic. Rossi doesn’t insist on pointing out the flaws, and allows them to find dark common ground. The action builds to a climax that feels inevitable thanks to artful signposting, but is not lacking in emotional and visceral heft.

Louis Scarpa is all awkward sleeve pulling as Gio, which plays well into a central motif surrounding hands. He also nails down a mysterious and otherworldly air to Gio, which foreshadows the final monologue perfectly. When he gets into a flow on his special interests, his wide-eyed energy is infectious, and matched by Nico Cetrulo as Mirko. Cetrulo is able to strike the right balance between Nico’s outward confidence, and the inexperience he is acutely aware of. Their relationship feels appropriately accidental, never straying far from the shame that engulfs Mirko.

The set (Constance Comparot) evokes Gio’s stinking cave well, with concrete and stone blocks getting strewn with rubbish and tinned supplies throughout the piece. Alex Forey cleverly uses a combination of side lights and the torch on a phone to evoke dinginess, and allows the actors to play in the shadows before revealing themselves. Later, pulsating LED lights (brought by Mirko) subtly tell the passage of time, and are a backdrop to Gio’s reclusive and confused existence. This is again emphasised by Mirko’s costume changes (Alessandro Milzoni) between scenes which contrast with Gio remaining in the same filthy hoody.

This is a fantastic production that has journeyed from Italy via New York and the Vault Festival in 2023. It is a real testament to exciting new writing, a brilliantly well-constructed meditation on fantasy and reality, truth and untruths, authenticity and facades with two enticing performances at its heart