Boy In A Box is a fearless exploration of cruelty, culpability and the excuses we make for our own inertia when confronted by the suffering of others.TICKET LINK: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:6688/
Boy In A Box confronts systemic racism and collective silence through the framework of a final lecture — what drew you to using the voice of a “cancelled” history professor to explore these ideas?
The professor, Alexander, holds a PhD in American Race and Racism from Stanford University and is therefore deeply knowledgeable on the subject. This provided a roadmap validating his dissertation on race and its genesis in the United States. As you may know, American universities are under fire at the moment. While this was written in 2020, it’s even worse in 2026, so I dug deeper into the cancellation of certain views in the educational environment.
The play asks audiences to examine their own inertia in the face of suffering; how important was it for the work to provoke self-reflection rather than simply deliver a political argument?
In the text, Alexander asks about “our own monstrous behaviour, our soapbox rants, our blind eyes, our silence, our emails” – these are the things we find ourselves confronting – and they’re meaningless. We must take a stronger position; we must fight back with the same ferocity that is confronting us every day.
The title itself suggests confinement and suppression — what does the “box” represent to you emotionally, socially or historically within the piece?
Well… we are all in a box now, aren’t we? We are all being forced into submission by the political climate we are trying to survive in, not just in America but throughout the world. The boy in the box can be real or metaphorical, as long as that boy forces us to rise up and do something to turn the ship around.
Your career has spanned acting, writing and directing over several decades — did creating Boy In A Box feel different from your earlier work because of the urgency of its themes?
It all came from that Nikki Haley claim at the Republican National Convention in 2020, that “America is not a racist country”. My response, during the pandemic, while working with The Actors Studio™ on Zoom was immediate, explosive and furious. I honestly don’t remember writing it – it flew out, uncontrolled and having written over 20 full length plays, as well as film & TV projects, nothing like this has ever happened to me.
Director Thomas Zoeschg has spoken about influences from Absurdist Theatre and Italian Neorealism; how did those artistic influences shape the tone and staging of the production?
Most, if not all of this, I leave to Thomas. He’s far more knowledgeable than I in this style of theater. I’m a realist, and this works perfectly for us as a team – I play the truth, a father with a son in trauma – set against an absurdist and metaphoric backdrop – so the audience is torn between what is real and what isn’t.
Boy In A Box tackles difficult and divisive conversations at a time of political polarisation — what role do you believe theatre still plays in challenging audiences to confront uncomfortable truths?
What troubles and confuses the audience (so far), is whether or not Alexander is racist (he is not). Alex is simply showing us what racism is, looks like, smells like and what lies ahead if we don’t do something extreme. We can look at Arthur Miller, Vaclav Havel, Bertolt Brecht, and Henrik Ibsen as examples of how theatre can create a profound impact. I had to try to make a difference with theatre as my tool.