ONLINE THEATRE REVIEW: Solitary - The Lockdown Theatre Company

A short monologue form the entirely online Lockdown Theatre Company, presenting pieces written by the company's creator, Rohan Candappa.

This one, Solitary, is an interesting piece, but for me leaves far too many questions unanswered.

An actress, too old for the character she is playing, is, as far as I can work out, being held in a solitary confinement cell in a Juvenile Detention centre. Clearly the lass is going stir crazy and we therefore are not sure whether what she relates is to be believed or not, however, I have no knowledge of the prison system, and yet, she must have done something really terrible or be considered to be of harm to other inmates to have been left in solitary for seemingly such an extended period. I am also uncertain as to how / why she has been allowed a mobile phone and music earplugs.

She talks of having been there 9 months - she talks of having a baby in her womb (in a very childlike manner) - she talks of wreaking revenge on those who have made her suffer when she gets out - she talks of being served inedible brown gloop - she chats and complains to a fellow inmate on her phone. Again all of these are done in a very immature teenage way. The actress, Georgia Nicholson, therefore, despite being a consummate actress, looks about 10 years too old.

Further consolidating the schoolgirl idea is that she talks a lot about school and her school friends; but since much of what she says is deliberately obfuscated by her mental state, it is very hard to latch on to this chaarcter given the short running time of the piece. We are given no indication of why she is there; what has she done and how long she is there for. There's no background at all to the story; we don't even know who she is. This leaves the viewer asking far too many questions and therefore ultimately unsated with the monologue being of little interest. That's a shame because Nicholson is an engaging performer, and the script could so easily have leaked some salient boltholes for us to anchor our understanding of the piece more.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 22/8/20