Queens' Fitzpatrick Hall
Dir: Jessi Savage-Hanford
3 stars

A small town is drying up. Six women meet to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of James Dean’s death: one prays for rain; one is raising a disabled child who may or may not be the love child of James Dean; another walks in, tall and cool and glamorous in the midst of the heat wave, and reveals that she used to be their best male friend, Joe.

This play is all about belief. If you believe something, does that make it true? And if it does, then how do you live with the truth you have created? From false memories through to rubber breasts, this play, despite its uneven script, relentlessly challenges the seductive power of dreams: can small-town dreams ever be enacted on a larger scale? The answer here, is a heart-rending ‘no’ – the success of any dream is portrayed as unlikely, and demands the sacrifice of almost everything else.

The script is flawed, creating a cause-and-effect dialogue between homosexual rape and trangenderism which goes unchallenged, and  a ‘double-time’ divide (half of the play is set in the fifties) which frequently confuses. However the cast do a spectacular job of keeping it together, thanks to Jessi Savage-Hanford’s skilful, innovative directing.

The play is delightfully well-cast, despite occasional lapses in Texan accent and an array of costumes spanning many, many more decades than the fifties or the seventies. ‘Mona in the fifties’ (Eve Rosato) has a vulnerability laced with icy determination which complements perfectly the Mona she has become (Jessica Barker-Wren), a tired and deluded dime store worker. Natalie Moss as the endearing and surprisingly shrewd ‘Edna –Louise’ is the perfect foil to Giulia Galastro’s acerbic and glamorous ‘Stella-May’. Ned Carpenter’s ‘Joe’, an immensely difficult part due to the dubious treatment of homophobia, nevertheless shows considerable depth despite the limitations of the role. Juanita, played with skill by Juliet Shardlow, a last minute stand-in, never lets her tense, overtly religious anxiety drop for a second: but it is Katy Bulmer, in her depiction of ‘Joanne’ the transgender ‘Joe’ whose poise and repressed anger steal the show.

The set is suitably seedy, the interval music toe-tapping, and the production as a whole hangs together as a desperate cry against the loneliness of  the small town (which here typifies America), and the difficulties of blurring reality and fiction. It is frequently funny, fast-paced and touching. As a British premier, it is unmissable.

Alice Tarbuck