Noughts and Crosses has always been thought provoking since its publication two decades ago but on stage, the acclaimed novel’s words and themes stay with you long after you’ve left the theatre.
Pilot Theatre’s touring production of Malorie Blackman’s book is a beautiful and moving adaptation that brings a familiar world to life.
It portrays a dystopia in which black people, known as crosses, make up the country's elite, while white people – AKA noughts – are an underclass.
Audiences understand where they would fit in this world and the team succeed in their mission to create a world we will recognise and understand, but not quite expect.
At the centre of the drama are Sephy Hadley (Effie Ansah) and Callum McGregor (James Arden). Best friends since childhood, they are trapped in a vicious circle of being a cross and a nought respectively.
The characters are magnets trying to push through the friction coming not just from their families, but society.
Effie Ansah embodies Sephy’s innocence and naivety which comes as a consequence of her privileged upbringing as the daughter of the country’s Home Secretary and enables her to be oblivious to others’ difficult lives.
She makes many mistakes in her drive to be better for her best friend and love, and the slur she uses is the first defining moment in both Callum and Sephy loss of innocence.
Her father Kamal, played by Chris Jack, captures the politician's façade. Behind closed doors, he is manoeuvring for power while presenting as a perfect family man with a progressive agenda.
Callum and Sephy often say the same thing, yet as the audience, you come to understand the exact same words mean different things on either side of the clear class and racial divide.
The lovers will say things that “no stitches” can heal but at their core, they are trying to break the wheel of violence and hatred suffocating them.
With heavy themes to address, the show does allow for moments of levity. These mainly come through the giddiness felt by teen Sephy and Callum. Arden in particular brought many a chuckle when Callum has small moments to just be a teenage boy and not a token in the political world.
In addition, the cast had an eleventh-hour replacement with Rob Jarvis coming into the role of Ryan McGregor.
It is a hard role to step into with limited preparation but credit must go to the actor who conveyed the conflict which was the spark for his son’s actions.
Ryan and Jude (Nathaniel McCloskey) are among the many characters that let their emotions bubble under the surface until the explosive and devastating final moments of Act 1 occur when you know the characters and their lives have changed forever.
When the lights go back up, Sephy and Callum have become very different from the people they were three years ago.
Actions have consequences and when Sephy is kidnapped by the Liberation Militia, which Callum is now a part of, the pair confront all the things they never said.
When Sephy is berated for “reading a few books” she tells Callum learning and relearning is what will make her actions mean more to those she intends to help.
The tension between the pair melts away into a passionate reunion and ultimately tragedy as once again society refuses to see any way forward between noughts and crosses.
What the final scenes show is that both Sephy and Callum could take the easy way out and give each other up for the sake of the status quo but neither do and are steely in their resolve to face life-changing decisions.
The staging is minimal for a reason, to portray multiple locations at once and to give the actors space so their movements can sweep the audiences along with the poetry of the dialogue or music.
Noughts and Crosses has always been more than Romeo and Juliet for the 21st century. For many teenagers it acts as a gateway into the complications of the world to discuss and decide what action they want to take.
As the play comes full circle – in more ways than one – Sephy ends the show with the words she began with. But whereas once they were filled with joy and innocence, now they are tinged with sadness and wondering about the future of her newborn child.
Noughts and Crosses may be set in an alternate reality but its themes and the characters do not look any different to us.
The show will finish at The Wolsey Theatre on November 12.
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