Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The playwright seems curiously detached about rape: The Breach, at Hampstead Theatre, reviewed

Plus: there's some great young actors at work in this early Pinter play at the White Bear Theatre

There's some great opening dialogue from Acton (Stanley Morgan) and Jude (Shannon Tarbet) in The Breach but then it goes haywire. Image: © Johan Persson 
issue 21 May 2022
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  • The Breach

    Hampstead Theatre, until 4 June

  • The Dwarfs

    White Bear Theatre, until 5 June

Hampstead’s latest play is a knotty rape drama by Naomi Wallace set in Kentucky. Four teenagers with weird names meet in a hired basement. Hoke and Frayne are boys. Jude is a girl whose younger brother, Acton, gets bullied at school. Their chat is aggressive, cynical and funny. Jude boasts that she’s already lost her virginity but she’s proud to have slept with just two men: ‘You’ve got to do six or seven to qualify for slut.’

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