Lampedusa, Soho Theatre, London - review

In Anders Lustgarten's pair of intertwined monologues the subject is the "economic migrant": the realities of motivation and of what people undergo during and after migration, the different pressures to which they and their hosts are subjected.

Lampedusa is the southernmost island territory of Italy, closer to Tunisia than to Sicily or even to Malta. As such, it is the first EU landfall for African boat people. Stefano crews a boat in the island's deliberately inadequate rescue service: letting people drown is considered a deterrent. He is ashamed not of his job but of the economic pressures that have put him and his entire community in such a position.

Meanwhile in Leeds, Denise is a debt collector for a firm of legalised loan sharks. She has no sympathy for those who, in her view, have got themselves into such a position simply through lack of "discipline". However, she too despises the pressures that force her to take a job so alien to her sense of her own values; that force her ailing mother through the sausage machine of assessments for disability welfare payments; and that have turned racism into "free speech" and made her (as mixed race Anglo-Chinese) an equally demonised figure.

Steven Atkinson's production (which goes on to the HighTide Festival in Aldeburgh) is barely an hour long and straightforward almost to the point of minimalism. We sit in the round, the two performers among us until they stand, turn and turn about, to deliver their segments. Louise Mai Newberry is blunt, at times almost strident, demanding that we listen to her; Ferdy Roberts is quieter but more intense, commanding our attention. Both Stefano and Denise slowly build a relationship with an individual, which leads them to reassess and to change their behaviour.

This is essential to the social aspect of globalisation, but I fear that Lustgarten knows he is overplaying his hand in the final couple of minutes by making these notes of hope so explicit. Nevertheless, it is heartening that theatre has found such an articulate voice to ask these inevitable and necessary questions.

sohotheatre.com

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