Al Watan Review – Rough banter and barbed exchanges on the bus | stage

nAnnecy Farino’s debut play deals with the fault lines in the relationship between father and daughter. It’s a refreshing theme, set on wheels, like a road trip on which Winston (Jason Thorpe) takes Joey (also Farino) by rail, after refitting a school bus into a camper van.

Joy is a reluctant passenger, Winston is Tigerish’s life coach and an overbearing father who sells the trip to her as a voyage of discovery after tracing the family tree to County Mayo. They are both actually looking for escape, she from her depression in the wake of her first big breakup, and he from a legal case involving a dead client for which his grieving family holds him responsible.

It is a powerfully confined space that embodies the Freudian drama of blame, guilt, and parental harm. This arises from prickly exchanges on the bus and flashbacks to the legal case in which Winston himself is receiving coaching of sorts by lawyer Claire (Shona Babaime). The third narrative part takes us to Joey’s dream world, a lyrical, wintery world full of deletions.

There’s sharp banter and a great, recurring joke about Bono between father and daughter, but there’s little that’s warm and fuzzy about their dynamic. He dominates, she submits. A crash shatters the roof on the bus and their relationship, but before this climactic battle, there are layers of repressed or half-spoken emotions, delicately captured in dialogue, and surprisingly poignant singing.

It builds unevenly in its three parts, gaining traction in the legal case and the road trip. The minimal aspect of Joy’s interior design has a beautiful, dream-like allure but feels a bit as if it were a different play. There are other elements that are incomplete: Claire’s story is insufficiently explained, and the reflections on Joey’s grief, which are mentioned repeatedly, are frustratingly few.

But there’s deft direction from Tessa Walker and great performances that make it a joy to watch in its disparate parts. There’s some interesting writing here too, both in the dialogue and in Joey’s engaging monologues. Debbie Duru’s set design brings visual poetry. The bus is just seats on wheels, its effects created by blows of snow, light and shadow (lighting design by Christopher Nairn) and movement (by Rebecca Weld).

The originality of the staging, the refreshing writing, and even the strangeness of the structure make this a wonky gem of a first play.