An electrifying performance you will not forget
‘The Events’ is a play written by David Greig, directed by Jack Nurse, and assistant directed by Morgan Ferguson. It follows the journey of Claire (Claire Lamont) – a priest, a choir leader, and the sole survivor of a church mass shooting – as she grapples with trauma, grief, and confusion. A summary doesn’t fully do justice to the plot and story unfolding in Greig’s play, which offers a visceral hope for the future even in the face of the darkest aspects of humanity.
Wonder Fools, along with the live community choir, put on a performance that is jarringly unsettling, tearfully hopeful, and deeply beautiful. Walking into the theatre, the choir is smiling and cheerful, the overhead lighting warm and inviting: you are offered tea, coffee, and to join in with the choir’s warm-up songs. It is impossible to feel uneasy or anticipatory for the dark events about to unravel. Indeed, in the face of the choir’s easy welcome, the audience is lulled into a sense of security and comfort. When The Boy (Sam Stopford) — the shooter, never given a name — appears onstage, this security shatters. For that split second, the audience feels the same fear, horror, and shock as the choir do, as it is revealed The Boy murdered them all. The people in the choir feel real: as they disappear into the darkness, and as the audience understands them to be dead, it is hard to shake the connection that we had with the choir, and the feeling we have lost something, along with Claire.
From this electric beginning, I knew I was watching a five-star performance, and I was never proven wrong. Lamont’s grief and desperation to understand what has happened to her is devastatingly compelling. Lurching between the past and the present and the possible, Lamont’s portrayal of Claire’s spiral is beyond impressive. Confronted with the impossibility of the question – “What if bad things just happen?” – in her search for reason after unthinkable violence, Lamont demonstrates victimhood and the healing process as complicated, ugly, agonising, angry.
Stopford oscillates between equal parts menacing, despicable, lost, and tragic. Stopford also has the challenging task of playing other characters that Claire seeks out on her journey – a racist politician who condemns The Boy’s actions but believes his message worth listening to; a neglectful father who rejects The Boy in one breath and talks about mocking him the next; Claire’s girlfriend, Catrina, who suffers from Claire’s obsessive compulsion to uncover the truth about The Boy. Despite the monumental difficulty of making each of these characters compelling and fleshed-out, Stopford goes above and beyond.
The choir is what ties this whole performance together. At times jovial, other times haunting or frightening, their songs and presence add another tier of uneasiness. They exit the stage very rarely, almost always watching, and it is impossible to forget their fates. Each member of the choir was a vital addition to the play: their presence is a necessity, and each one of the choir members is equal parts chilling and painfully human.
From the haunting music (by composer John Browne, sound designer Gary Cameron, and community choir directors, Calre Haworth and Gerard Johnson) to the powerful use of lighting and shadows (from lighting designer Lizzie Powell), not a single area of the performance detracts from the story. While I personally wished the ending was different, I believe it remained true to the overall message of the play – that forgiveness may not be possible, or complete understanding, but empathy is always an option for us, even in the face of the worst moments of our life.
A magnetic, incredible show in every aspect, Wonder Fools’ performances of ‘The Events’ is not to be missed. The show has concluded its tour at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, but continues at Dundee Rep on the 25th February before going to the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh on the 27th and 28th February.