Heartstopper and Marvel’s Agatha All Along fans hoping to see more twitchy, elfin sensitivity with undercurrents of neurotic self-absorbtion from Joe Locke will not be disappointed by his strong performance here. His is, once again, excellent and compelling as a damaged young man wrestling with lack of self-worth and unsure of his place or purpose in the world. But as with Ncuti Gatwa currently doing the opposite (but the same old) in Born With Teeth, I’d like to see something different from such a talented young actor.
He plays wealthy Jake, who stumbles into the tiny town of Clarkston, on the Snake River border between Washington State and Idaho, as his car and body are both failing. Taking a night warehouse shift at CostCo, he bonds with working class local Chris, whose gruff exterior protects a tender, tormented and much abused heart. An aspiring writer with a deadbeat runaway father and struggling addict mother Trisha (Sophie Melville), he’s vividly and touchingly played by an impressive Ruaridh Mollica.
Across several shifts and encounters by the river, they tentatively dance around each other, both desperate for connection but quick to lash out when they feel vulnerable. There is so much potential here which, despite such strong performances, frustratingly amounts to very little.
Playwright Samuel D Hunter frequently channels his queer youth in smallest town America into his works to highlight US class and regional tensions, small town malaise and the quiet beauty of seemingly insignificant lives. Here he also cranks in colonialism, mental health, addiction and a very serious medical condition. It’s a lot for a short play of 95 minutes with no interval, one sparse set and just three actors.
Having some audience framing the stage adds to the intensity and intimacy of the warehouse setting and all three actors work hard to imbue as much life as they can into their characters, although Melville’s underwritten Trisha is profoundly clichéd and mainly there as a plot device to advance the action.
Jake soon blurts that he has juvenile Huntington’s disease, and probably won’t live to thirty. He’s starting to briefly lose some control of motor functions. He’s also obsessed with distant relative William Clark, able to quote verbatim his famous journals chronicling the major 1804 early Westward colonising expedition. He wants to see the Pacific Ocean before he dies. He’s also frequently insensitive and two-dimensionally unaware of what ‘normal people’ deal with.
Jake and Chris have an abortive sexual encounter, stack shelves, bond, bicker, bond again, sit by the river, spout supposedly profoundly revealing dialogue, nond a bit more. There’s a terrifically ill-judged moment of suicide ideation that whips past and is never addressed again.
The two actors achieve some lovely tender moments and, whether due to the writing or Mollica’s fine work, and I found myself rooting for Chris. I’m guessing the pedestrian predictable ending is intended to inspire and convey catharsis. I may have shrugged.
As the lights dimmed, I was none the wiser about Jake’s condition, nor the condition of small town America for queers, addicts or anyone at all. I’d learned nothing about his privileged background and its place in an increasingly tense sociopolitical landscape, or the long shadow of the nation’s colonising past. Apparently, this UK production also feels it draws parallels with our own colonial history. I felt none the wiser.
This is the kind of story that would work better as a meandering small indie film, high on mood and low on content. It’s something you feel should be all about the journey, but sadly it went nowhere at all.
CLARKSTON AT THE TRAFALGAR THEATRE TO NOVEMBER 22