Part of the GM Fringe Festival, “Blue Lines” is a new play written by Stefanie Moore – winner of the Hive Aware 2019. It has been developed under the mentorship of Tim Firth (Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots and The Band).
The storyline centres on a new sex education teacher (Nicole Evans) and a 15 year old pupil Abbie (Jenna Sian O’Hara), who has only recently moved to this school, and their developing relationship as they are thrown together through circumstance rather than any real connection.
The opening scene has Sarah teaching one of her sex education classes with just about the worst bunch of pupils in the school. This was a cringingly uncomfortable opening as the sound of the children shouting out embarrassing phrases to the teacher and the awkwardness of her nervous reactions making for a funny scene – she ended up writing several points on her whiteboard that with hindsight she wouldn’t have mentioned. Use of the background noise in the classroom is very effective on what is a very simple stage with a table, two chairs and a whiteboard. I particularly enjoyed the use of dates being written on the whiteboard so the audience knew exactly the timeline.
Towards the end of that opening scene we met Abbie who wishes to confide a secret with her teacher, something she doesn’t want anyone else know. Sarah met Abbie with an equally nervous and anxious response as her earlier class, but Abbie was firm that she wanted to share her secret with the teacher she thought was most qualified to listen. Sarah reluctantly agreed to help when Abbie shows her the blue lines on the pregnancy test and then confessed she had done a further three positive tests that day.
Abbie is what you might describe as a stereotypical 15 year old who might find themselves in this scenario – she is naïve, loud mouthed and gives off a vibe of confidence but underneath this she is very vulnerable and lost. She has made a terrible mistake that she knows will impact her life forever but she has nobody close to her that she feels she can share this with.
The next scenes played out the journey that Sarah and Abbie went on together through scans at the hospital, the conversations at school and the mutually agreed keeping of Abbie’s secret from her parents and the school, although of course this eventually had to come out. This then leads to Sarah’s own secret being revealed.
“Blue Lines” had a very funny opening scene and if I am being totally honest I thought this would be a benchmark for what was to come, but this never really materialised. The rest of the play was much more of a drama but without a great deal of dramatic action – in truth very little of note happened throughout. However, this play is emotional and very moving – the performances of the two actresses make this with their real on-stage chemistry and it is hard to dislike the play for that very reason.
Reviewer - John Fish
on - 20/7/19
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