THE BOUNDS at the Royal Court

★★★

“The stakes in The Bounds are high, and there’s more than the outcome of a soccer game at risk”

The Bounds is an ambitious attempt to create a historical drama out of the origins of soccer. It’s a well chosen subject, given that the game has been a national obsession for centuries. And it’s no great stretch to imagine a form of the soccer that included a pitch that could stretch for miles, a match that could last days, and players willing to risk their lives for a chance to bring immortal glory to their team. Playwright Stewart Pringle also includes a sketched in backdrop of Tudor politics, both spiritual and secular, and a sprinkling of apocalyptic visions. That’s the gist of The Bounds, now on at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs.

The Bounds begins well. We are introduced to Percy and Rowan, a couple of working class soccer players, who are determined that this will be the year that their village of Allendale finally triumphs over their arch rivals in Catton. The fact that they haven’t won in a long time does not deter their enthusiasm. Or the fact that they are on the outer peripheries of the game, miles from any action. As the good natured banter between Percy and his friend Rowan continues, we realize that these two are more like soccer fans in the stands, than players in the game. That’s Tudor soccer for you. When a third character, a classic outsider both in dress and address, enters, these two are naturally suspicious. And, this being Tudor times, accusations of witchcraft, popery and perversion start flying. When Samuel admits that he’s a college graduate (from Oxford, no less) he doesn’t help his case. Percy and Rowan, well educated in the signs of omens and portents, know that he is bad news, for all his educated ways. In this mismatched trio, all the rivalries of north versus south, working class versus middle class, and Protestantism versus Catholicism, come spilling out in a variety of ugly ways. What has all this to do with soccer? It’s a good question.

Unfortunately, the broad brush of Pringle’s own vision for his play is hampered by the fact that he has to work within the confines of a small space in the Theatre Upstairs, and with only four actors. These constraints wouldn’t have stopped the playwrights of the Tudor era, but we are in a less poetic age (in drama, at least). Where iambic pentameter could sketch a world in a few lines, we moderns tend to rely on the overuse of monosyllabic expletives. Pringle’s pared down dialogue and sketched in characters are entertaining, but with such serious subject matter as soccer and politics under discussion, the inventiveness in this piece starts to run out a while before the end of the play. Rather like the soccer game that the trio are observing.

The stakes in The Bounds are high, and there’s more than the outcome of a soccer game at risk. And that’s really where The Bounds ends up. It turns out that there are more important things than soccer games going on in Allendale. Pringle almost casually introduces us to the theme of boundaries being redrawn in The Bounds, but this is the masterstroke of Tudor strategy that echoes down the centuries, robbing local people of their spaces, and even their identities. It’s easy to see how the limitless game of soccer in Tudor times becomes the rule bound play of the modern game, confined within a single pitch of a predetermined size, and time constraints that don’t allow much flexibility. Pringle suggests that the unstructured nature of the ancient game had more freedom, despite the anarchy of play.

The actors, Soroosh Lavasani (Samuel), Ryan Nolan (Percy), Lauren Waine (Rowan) and Harry Weston (the Boy) bring an energetic presence to The Bounds. Ryan Nolan in particular, as a native Geordie, is completely at home both with the dialect and passion for the game. His versatility as a performer keeps the play focused, especially when it is in danger of drifting. Lauren Waine’s Rowan as the foil to Ryan Nolan’s Percy, is equally confident, and it is a delight to watch them play off against each other. If Soroosh Lavasani’s Samuel is less certain, it’s an accurate depiction of the place his character inhabits in Tudor society. A little education with a lot of religious indoctrination can be a dangerous thing, and Samuel proves that in spades. Harry Weston’s part may be small, but he carries the future in his lines, and his confident delivery as the Boy sounds the knell for the autonomy of folk like Percy. Jack McNamara’s direction keeps the action on the move, even within such a confined space.

Pringle’s drama is bold in its inception. If it doesn’t quite measure up to its opening promise, it may be that The Bounds needs a space, and a cast, as large as the Whitsuntide match between Allendale and Catton in the mid sixteenth century.