'SOLD,' is a Theatre Versus Oppression production, created by Jennifer S.Hartley. |I saw it at Chapter Arts Centre on Saturday. 'It was written after a period of consultation and counselling of trafficking victims. It tells the story of 6 individuals who have suffered at the hands of traffickers. . . their stories collide at a bus stop in Bute Town, Cardiff.' The subject matter is particularly relevant with the recent discovery of enslaved people found on a farm outside Newport, working as forced labour.
You would expect to be moved by these stories of human misery but overall I wasn't emotionally involved. The problem with the play for me is that there no deep communication and engagement between the individual characters. It is a collection of stories rather than a study of relationships. There is no dialectic to provide tension and different views other than these victims. Although there were some good performances I'm not sure that the faux Eastern European accents worked well. The only hope for change was the baby born to an abandoned trafficked victim. The audience was left with the characters' despair and no hints of how change might or could happen. Given that TvO is a charity, 'dedicated to using Applied Theatre to bring about positive change and development,' I left Chapter feeling un-empowered to do something positive, just thinking, 'Isn't it terrible?' I think this play would work much better as a starting point for work-shopping and as a piece of theatre in education.
The play is touring Wales til the 9th of November 2013. For further info www.theatreversusoppression.co.uk
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