Noël’s latest play for Theatre Centre was a brilliantly crafted, compelling contemporary drama. Global politics shone through individual lives people from very different backgrounds learned, painfully, what divided them and what, surprisingly, they had in common. Inspired by the lives and stories of Theatre Centre’s Young Apprentice Writers, Trashed was set in the context of shared loss in the 9/11 disaster and the tensions between America and the Muslim soul. A love story and a searing portrayal of loss, the writing illuminated reactions to homosexuality and the inability to accept the choices of another.
Noel Greig’s Trashed was inspired by a Muslim girl’s experience - she had visited an uncle in New York in August 2001 and he died in the Twin Towers. The play is set in the shadow of terrorism and addresses a clash of culture, class, religion and generation with global politics seeping through an intensely personal contemporary drama.
Strong sound effects combined with a sparse touring set of wire fencing and rostra - both subtly strewn and stuffed with remnants of tattered Stars and Stripes, photos, flowers, crushed coke cans and a flattened fireman’s jacket - evoke litter bins, seats, slopes and perimeters of both battered New York and run down London.
Ruhela, an orthodox teenage Muslim, and Louisa, “white trash” from Mississippi, meet in a London Park. Louisa, we discover, has flown to meet Ruhela, her mission one of reconciliation with the past and each other. Seemingly they are complete opposites but as they replay the summer of 2001, conjuring up a son, brother and “a love that can’t be mentioned” the two women find out they both have much more than Dvorak in common. The clever soundtrack including the New World Symphony, along with a roller coaster story, combine to eventually hit the heart right where it beats.
Directed with clarity and vision, an ensemble cast gives energetic, edgy performances with the experienced Maggie O’Brien leading all the way as they take a cleverly constructed, time-travelling script and wring it for every bit of emotional juice.
