Review: BAD ROADS, Royal Court

A journalist ventures to the front line in search of a story. Underage girls wait to be a soldier's playthings. A medic mourns the loss of her lover. In the bleakest areas of Ukraine, a war rages on.

A powerful and occasionally unnerving comedic insight into the struggles of battle, Bad Roads offers no alternative to its horror, and simply presents the harrowing facts as they are. Bodies are getting ripped apart and villages are being destroyed.

Camilla Clarke's design sees bare, rough trees penetrate from the floorboards. A dirty bathtub is situated downstage left, and chairs that have been pushed over - it's clear from the off that this is not the safest of places. War is dirty, grossly unsatisfying and not at all glamorous.

Four years ago Ukrainians overwhelmed Independent Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in Kiev, in protest of their government's failings to develop political ties to the EU. Their revolution in 2014 resulted in the removal of President Yanukovych, and since then, continuous conflict, the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and a fight between the separatist forces and the Ukrainian Government has led to at least 10,225 documented deaths.

Leading Ukrainian playwright Natal'ya Vorozhbit has taken first-hand accounts of people embroiled in the conflict, placing the emphasis on the female struggle. Through a series of vignettes women take turns to reveal their circumstances, be it through directly addressing the audience, or interacting with one another.

The phrase 'woman in war' could lead you to having a certain expectation of what to see. And despite the fact that a lot of the play's content is based on the women's relationships with soldiers (sex, violence and dealing with their death), Vicky Featherstone's production ensures that it's never through the male gaze.

A disturbing rape scene that occurs during a blackout is viscerally intense, performed superbly by Ria Zmitrowicz and Tadhg Murphy. The way this has been handled is brilliant. Instead of the girl getting undressed she puts on more clothes, and by dramaturgically designing it in a way where the other girl (Ronke Adekoluejo) washes her afterwards, it places the focus once again on the woman - a credit to Featherstone's delicate crafting.

The piece provides an acute view of how war can destroy our humanity. The rape scene shows this, but so does the scene that follows afterwards. A middle-class woman (again Adejoluejo) runs over a chicken, which leads to the villager's guilt-tripping her into handing over her possessions as compensation. This exploitation only ceases when they remember that the woman is a human being, after they hear her baby cry in the car.

Bad Roads is an example of the trend at the Court right now: plays that also operate like an intellectual exercise. It's not a bad thing; blurring the boundaries of live art, storytelling and theatre is exciting, and when it's done right, such as on this occasion, it creates a much more important theatrical engagement.

Bad Roads at the Royal Court until 23 December

Photo credit: Helen Murray

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