Stewart Pringle’s new play set in Northumberland in 1553 has the bones of something great, but at present teeters on parody
Newcastle’s Live theatre is 51 this year. Under its latest artistic director and CEO, Jack McNamara, it continues to pursue a mission: to produce new writing that is rooted in the region and “unafraid to confront the most pressing issues of our time”. The issues explored in Stewart Pringle’s well-intentioned new play, The Bounds, are succinctly expressed in the title. They include the various ways in which people are bound (or choose to bind themselves) to sets of beliefs or patterns of existence, and the ways they are affected by seemingly arbitrary political changes that redefine the boundaries which have shaped their identities.
Percy (Ryan Nolan) and Rowan (Lauren Waine) are marking one of the bounds of the annual village football match (tufts of grass in an expanse of mud – Verity Quinn’s design). In Northumberland, in the reign of Edward VI, the rules of the game are simple: each village has a pole; the first team to hit the other’s pole wins. Injury is expected, death not unknown. Although unable even to see the action, Percy insists that he is playing “an integral part in… the most important game, possibly of our lives”. Continue reading...
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