Penelope McDonald as Mrs. Rutter and Emma Romy-Jones as
Ms. Lawson in the 2016 produc-tion at the Edin-burgh Fringe.
What is it?
It’s a play by British playwright Billy Cowan, originally produced in Dublin in 2009, and subsequently presented in a new version in Oldham in 2016.
What’s it about?
It’s a two-hander, in which a young and idealistic teacher battles an older and somewhat world-weary deputy head teacher over what to do about a student who is being bullied.
Because he’s gay?
That’s what the young teacher supposes.
So it’s a play about homophobia?
Well ... I think the play has been constructed to open dialogue about a number of topics, without really going into any of them in depth. One of those topics is homophobia and bullying, but it’s equally about the institution of “the school” and the responsibility of the educational establishment to protect students, and about whether it’s better to try to effect change from within or without.
In the end, I don’t think this is really a play that would be performed on its own merits, but is rather a piece of theatre designed to be part of a larger process within an educational setting. The printed edition I read has a lot of class exercises at the end, and I think that is really the idea of the play: performance in a school setting and subsequent discussion.
So it’s not really a play you’d recommend reading?
No. From an LGBTQ perspective, it’s not even really about queer issues. The “problem” at the heart of the conflict here is homophobia, but it could just as easily be racism or misogyny.
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