Someone boo-ed and it wasn’t in derision

The Frontline at The Globe Theatre, July 6th
Written by Ché Walker
Directed by Matthew Dunster

Tube stations at night are unpredictable places, frequented by a congregation of random and potentially unpredictable characters. But then Shakespeare’s characters were naves and madmen as well as kings, so why should strippers, drug dealers, gangsters, god-bother-ers and hot dog sellers not tread the boards of Shakespeare’s Globe? Ché Walker thinks they should, and deposits them there by way of his new play, The Frontline, specially commissioned for The Globe theatre. His point being that these London ‘invisibles’, commonly summed up in just one word, be it hooker or addict, are also individuals with just as much potential story to them as Shakespeare’s characters.

The Globe was an egalitarian entertainer in the early 17h Century when it was first built, and Walker sees no reason for it not to be equally as accessible now, both for the audience and for the kinds of characters who appear on the stage. This is the first play about contemporary London to be staged at The Globe. Busy with characters, there are 24, and storylines, it is the setting, a tube station late at night that ties the action together. Drug deals turn sour and violent, gangs bicker over turf, reformed sinners preach to the converted, a young actor goes mad for lack of recognition for his ‘”tsunami of talent’“, a stripper and a bookish, gentle bouncer fall in love, a deluded man mistakes every woman he sees for his missing daughter, a young man is murdered and hot dogs are sold.

Walker has layered the dialogue of different storylines on top of each other. In one moment three separate arguments are taking place at once, but more often it is two, one happening on either side of the stage. The effect works in some places, creating an audio backdrop of city nightlife, but in some places it just makes it difficult to hear. The use of concurrent scenes makes use of the unusual setting of The Globe, which feels like it played a big role in the writing process. Performing in daylight, in a space where all sound carries, the actors are far more at the mercy of the audience than in a traditional theatrical setting. Audience murmurs and shuffles have more effect on the rest of the audience, and tides of dis-engagement can spread like Mexican waves where people can see each other’s faces as well as they can see those of the actors. So expecting people to isolate the intended dialogue from the mix is a tall order – unless Walker weighs all dialogue equal and is happy for people on opposite sides of the audience to walk away having seen different plays. When the timing was perfect this device was used wittily, arguments were allowed to slot together and reference each other (brilliantly in one section where one character analyses the importance of Marmite to Britain’s colonial past, while another finds out he’s about to become a father.) and there was a clever overlap of themes that heightened the mood further; but when the actors lost each other it fell into sounding like people talking over each other.

Fair play to the actors though, they would have had just as much difficulty hearing each other as the audience did, especially considering how engaged and active the audience was. The Globe is a precarious space for maintaining audience belief, but this audience was totally on side – even though the questionably suitable song numbers which littered an otherwise ‘real life’ production. And it wasn’t just cheering and clapping, I actually heard someone boo – and not in derision, but as a way of expressing his feelings and siding with one character over another – I don’t think that happens anymore in a traditional theatrical space.

Maybe the songs were in reference to Shakespearian traditions of lyrical dialogue and breaking the ‘third wall’, where characters leave their scene to address the audience in a way that suggests they know they’re players? The Frontline’s narrator, the hot dog seller, who also has a role within the play, does something similar, signposting particular events and giving the audience the gift of foresight.

For an audience to follow so many characters and simultaneous storylines, the individual voices have to be quite distinctive – especially in the beginning of the play where there are so many characters to introduce. Walker achieved some of this by including characters from different countries, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and different cultural or social groups, but some of it was just good writing, to the extent that I began to wonder if some of it wasn’t work shopped on these actors – but I checked and it wasn’t.

Each character’s path had moments in both light and shade. Quite philosophical and definitely a social commentary on the politics of multiculturalism and wealth distribution, The Frontline could have bogged the audience down with serious issues (maybe the songs were also mood lighteners?), but didn’t. Some characters spiral downward, the young actor, desperate for his big break becomes increasingly unhinged, the reformed sinner is drawn back into her old ways, the young man is murdered because of drugs; but some pass by on their way to better things, a couple begin and a baby is anticipated with excitement – life has potential, we’re told in so many (unnecessary) words. People can be murderers but they can also be good, and some surprisingly allegiances are formed under difficult conditions. These coalitions (not quite friendships) or unlikely bedfellows (literally in the case of the homeless junkie who shares his telephone booth squat with the actor.) are much more life affirming than the overt promises of a new couple and a new baby (I wonder if Walker realises this?).

The question is asked how far do people need to be degraded before they’ll be helped and how strong is our humanity in the real world of tube stations, crap jobs, no rights and financial struggle. Walker, without sounding twee, answers that though many of us have to deal with inequality, injustice and simple unfairness, there’s still hope for us yet. And he doesn’t spell that one out, just lets you leave with a warm sense of sharing something with the rest of the audience – which is something that not all theatrical settings allow, but which Shakespeare’s audiences must have felt too.