“Cullen is excellent as Ed, at once physically strong and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable”
Bones opens in the middle of a rugby match, bodies hurtling across the grassy stage. Actors grapple and slam each other to the floor, centimetres from the audience who are sat thrillingly close in the intimate Park90 space. Ed (Ronan Cullen) describes the thrill of a scrum, and it feels like the front row might be called up to flank the defence.
Bones invites the audience to become one of the lads, as it tackles mental health and masculinity within a rugby club. The plot follows a young man, Ed, who is isolating himself from his close-knit team. His mates, including level-headed Charlie (Samuel Hoult) and the swaggering Will (Ainsley Fannen) grow concerned at his erratic behaviour but struggle to communicate outside of jabbing pub banter. As a crucial match looms, Ed’s interactions with his friends, a doctor and his father suggest a more serious unravelling.
Cullen is excellent as Ed, at once physically strong and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable. James Mackay completes the ensemble, responsible for portraying multiple minor characters who are depicted by adding different shirts over the rugby strip sported by the rest of the cast. The most significant of these is Ed’s father and Mackay and Cullen have a touching, tender closing scene.
Bones makes the most of theatre in the round, with the set a simple square of AstroTurf. The closeness of the audience emphasises the claustrophobia of Ed’s struggles: the proximity means you see every drop of sweat beading on the actors’ faces.
Lighting and two spartan benches are cleverly deployed to move scenes between the rugby field, the pub, and Ed’s house. A rugby ball spewing chalk is utilised creatively through the climax, though I did leave with my trousers spotted with white powder.
The production is from Redefine, a company co-founded by ex-athletes and theatrical movement practitioners. This partnership reaps benefits in affrontingly physical match sequences that illustrate the parallels between Ed’s physical and mental pain. This is the piece’s second outing after a run at the Theatre Peckham in May 2022. It has been extended to 75 minutes and has an updated sound design (Eliza Willmott). Atmospheric synths back intense, acrobatic scenes, though actors occasionally lose the battle to make sure every line is heard.
The writing is worth straining to hear, with Lewis Aaron Wood’s script regularly serving up belly-laugh one-liners, especially for chief jester Will. This character’s transformation is one of the more interesting strands within the play; his early ripostes encroach on bullying territory, though he is the first to learn how to engage with crisis-mode Ed. Fannen deftly navigates this complexity so it does not jar. He delivers one of the most poignant lines: he challenges the generally more sensitive Charlie as to whether Charlie should want to be proven right, or let a contentious point go to support a friend. Moments like this elevate the piece, which sensitively explores the frustrations of engaging with those facing mental health struggles.
The conclusion of Bones may be too sentimental for some, with the optimistic ending avoiding the grittier reality of mental health care available within the UK. However, Redefine have stated their ambition to show recordings of Bones to rugby clubs across the country, where the play’s hopeful message is likely most novel.
There is enough sporting pedigree behind the show to ensure irregular theatre goers should not feel patronised by theatre creeping on their turf, whilst the quality script, strong direction from Redefine co-founder Daniel Blake, and intense physical performances give a thespian crowd plenty to enjoy.
“Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits”
Kyle has spent his whole life desperate to be in the army. Idolising his father who was a soldier, he’s sacrificed the possibility of love, both romantic and familial, to ensure his military future. When he meets Chuck while serving in Afghanistan, he starts to wonder if he can have both. But after stepping on an IED, his hopes are upended.
Paper Cut by Andrew Rosendorf poses some important questions about masculinity, family loyalty, and love. The idea that gay men should have had to hide their sexual orientation in order to serve is rightly highlighted as bizarre and destructive, and the idea, too, that romantic love requires sex is called in to question.
Kyle’s relationship with his twin brother Jack is a brilliant example of unconditional love, of caring for someone even after they’ve betrayed you for their own ends. Joe Bollard as Jack is warm and awkward, laughs and tears coming as easily as each other, and he’s a brilliant counterpart to his overly intense brother.
Prince Kundai, who plays love interest Chuck, is charismatic and lovable. Entirely comfortable in his own skin, and endearingly sincere, it’s easy to see how he and Kyle might slip from friends to lovers.
Tobie Donovan, playing Harry, another love interest, is sweet and ridiculous. He’s got great comic timing and even gets a few laughs where I’m not sure there was supposed to be one.
While the plot itself is gritty and melancholy, the script feels a little too sentimental, relying on clichés and long…meaningful…pauses. Callum Mardy (Kyle) seems to get the bulk of these staring-off-in-the-distance speeches about the meaning of serving your country and so forth, and it overrides the genuine tragedy of his story, with him coming off a little ridiculous.
The script’s final lines, for example, completely diminish the fervent conversation that preceded them, as Kyle and Chuck look out at the sunset: “If you could go back and change anything, would you?”/ “So much.” The end. It’s just a bit lazy. And it’s a shame because in Mardy’s moments of levity, irony and even anger, he shows his capabilities, but he’s let down by the script’s sap.
Sorcha Corcoran’s design, a simple wooden backwall with a row of inbuilt storage chests, works fine, serving its practical purpose of hiding props and keeping the stage clean. That is, until the penultimate scene when before, in the cover of dark, the stage is scattered with gold confetti. This all comes to make sense when the final scene takes place on the beach, but less so when we’re in Jack’s apartment. Why not just wait a minute, and scatter the confetti directly before the beach scene? Or, given how minimalist the rest of the set is, why do it at all?
Lucia Sanchez Roldan’s lighting design is inoffensive: Strip lights hang from the ceiling, changing colours throughout. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story though, and seems a bit “designy” for the sake of it.
Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits. That said, there’s plenty to work with, and nothing a bit of red ink couldn’t fix.
