Lucky Box
Òran Mór, Glasgow
3 out of 5
As the younger character in David Harrower's drama suggests, Lucky Box is "some kind of fucked-up fairy story". It takes place one afternoon on a forest path where a middle-aged man in a suit is sitting on a plastic container, making it hard for 17-year-old Jack to get by. Played by Stuart Bowman, always an intimidating actor, the man is just the kind of big bad wolf your mother warned you about: tricky and volatile.
It is not clear why Jack doesn't just make a run for it, but the sturdy young actor Scott Fletcher successfully holds his ground. What Harrower offers is a battle for status, the boy undermining the man's assumed authority, seeing through his lies while revealing as little of himself as possible. In Dominic Hill's production, their exchanges are crisp, loaded and tense, combining the toughness of Mamet with the elliptical brevity of Beckett.
Harrower, who proved himself a master of reserve with Knives in Hens and Blackbird, is in characteristically enigmatic form here, although sometimes he makes us feel less tantalised than strung along. His theme is not perfectly articulated, but he seems to be making the connection between society's disregard for its victims and the broken lines of communication between fathers and sons.
For all his conversational dominance, the man has been made impotent by the recession, having lost his job as a school careers adviser. The beating meted out to his son (who is the same age as Jack) by a gang of boys compounds the impression of a callous society. That he hasn't spoken to his son for months suggests that male emotional inarticulacy and economic violence are bound together - a theme Harrower might yet invest with more dramatic weight if he develops this promising play further.
Òran Mór, Glasgow
3 out of 5
As the younger character in David Harrower's drama suggests, Lucky Box is "some kind of fucked-up fairy story". It takes place one afternoon on a forest path where a middle-aged man in a suit is sitting on a plastic container, making it hard for 17-year-old Jack to get by. Played by Stuart Bowman, always an intimidating actor, the man is just the kind of big bad wolf your mother warned you about: tricky and volatile.
It is not clear why Jack doesn't just make a run for it, but the sturdy young actor Scott Fletcher successfully holds his ground. What Harrower offers is a battle for status, the boy undermining the man's assumed authority, seeing through his lies while revealing as little of himself as possible. In Dominic Hill's production, their exchanges are crisp, loaded and tense, combining the toughness of Mamet with the elliptical brevity of Beckett.
Harrower, who proved himself a master of reserve with Knives in Hens and Blackbird, is in characteristically enigmatic form here, although sometimes he makes us feel less tantalised than strung along. His theme is not perfectly articulated, but he seems to be making the connection between society's disregard for its victims and the broken lines of communication between fathers and sons.
For all his conversational dominance, the man has been made impotent by the recession, having lost his job as a school careers adviser. The beating meted out to his son (who is the same age as Jack) by a gang of boys compounds the impression of a callous society. That he hasn't spoken to his son for months suggests that male emotional inarticulacy and economic violence are bound together - a theme Harrower might yet invest with more dramatic weight if he develops this promising play further.
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