BWW Reviews: ENDURING SONG, Southwark Playhouse, June 13 2014

It's hard to know what to make of Jesse Britton's Enduring Song (continuing at Southwark Playhouse until 5 July), an epic saga of of crusading and farming in 11th century Avignon and Antioch. The action oscillates between a failing farmstead and a city under siege; between the men under arms abroad and the women under pressure at home as the rains fail and the church demands its tithe; between the love and duty owed to a family and that owed to a religion.

It starts like a version of the Carry On Lionheart that was never made: the lads pursue the girls with plenty of smutty frat boy talk and high jinks that show that a thousand years doesn't matter much when we're talking about horny teenagers. Enter the sinister figure of the Bishop of Amiens, a long-haired middle-aged man who brings all the fake charisma of the modern cult leader to medieval France. Soon he has half-sold, half-demanded that the lads leave the girls and travel with him to wrest control of Jerusalem from the heathen hordes. Boys become men as the cross and the sword guide their destinies in the exotic and dangerous Near East.

So far so good, but then the dangers of the dual role of writer-director begin to undermine the plot's dramatic potential and set the audience on almost as gruelling a journey as the Crusaders. The play is very long - 15 minutes shy of three hours with a very short interval - and it's also the loudest I have ever heard. Actors run on and off the stage at full tilt and no line is spoken when it can be shouted. Already some of the cast appear to be losing their voices, croaking out lines which, allied to a staging in the round that too often means that two sides of the house cannot see them properly, makes it hard to follow the plot at times. Possibly mindful of the running time, too many speeches are delivered too quickly, cranking up the emotional pitch still further, leading to a hectic, breathless production lacking in the light and shade good storytelling demands.

Bear Trap is a theatre company dedicated to creating classically inspired new work and their ambition is laudable even if their execution is too muddled and too hurried to make the most of their material. I'm sure they'll be back and I look forward to giving them a more positive review than I have done here, because London needs its extraordinary conveyor belt of upcoming talent to keep churning out the next generation of writers, directors and actors. Those bold young men and women can be forgiven if they don't always get it right.

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