Review: NATIVES, Southwark Playhouse

Premiering in the UK at Southwark Playhouse, Glenn Waldron's Natives is a brilliant view onto what it means to grow up as a Millennial, with all the perils that entails.

The play portrays one crucial day in the life of three teenagers living in different countries, who are dealing with extremely different environments. A (Ella Purnell) is a socialite and fashionista, a girl whose loneliness is heightened by her own social life; B (Fionn Whitehead) is dealing with the loss of his brother while simultaneously trying to live up to the expectations the world has of a young teenage boy; C (Manish Gandhi) is living in an unspecified region in the Middle East, where war is still a harsh reality even though, according to his parents and his brother, it's gotten a lot better in recent times.

These young adults recount their day with gut-wrenching sincerity, disclosing, little by little, their fears, and trying to hold their own in a world that's against them. Starting as delicately subversive, the play develops into an engaging reflection on life through the different ways the three teenagers cope with their existences.

Directed by Rob Drummer, the production is impressive in its simplicity. Presented in the round, the three actors are almost permanently on stage, with no props but a boulder on one side of the stage.

Purnell, Whitehead, and Gandhi are earnest in their portrayals and understand the urgency of telling this story. Their authentic depiction of rage, pain, misunderstanding, and loneliness acts as a universal cry.

Glenn Waldron's script, which twists and turns, is outstandingly complemented by the work of Zoe Spurr and Cate Blanchard (lighting and video design, respectively): by projecting images - mostly animations and illustrations on the lightly coloured stage - Blanchard is able to balance deliberately cheesy atmosphere with more frantic moods, always accompanied by Spurr's effective lighting.

In a theatrical landscape largely focused on adults and their struggles, it's refreshing to have a play that holds as its main focus the everyday lives of our youngest generation. It doesn't condemn nor hail the world they live in, their dependence on gadgets, or their ways of communicating and engaging, but simply presents their issues s real and unconditionally valid. Waldron gives teenagers the right to feel.

Natives runs at Southwark Playhouse until 22 April

Photo credit: Richard Davenport

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