Review: AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL: CHAPTER 1 at King's Head Theatre

The show consists of three short, unrelated plays. First up is Hate Crime, starring Liam Jedele and Borris Anthony York. They play a couple, one of whom is getting married the next day….but not to the other. To reveal more would spoil the story, which carefully unfolds onstage, with LaBute gradually revealing the characters’ true intentions. Jedele is skittish and determined, while York’s character is softer and jovial, making the couple’s slowly-disclosed twistedness more disturbing and darkly comic. Both performers are likeable and believable, and director James Haddress manages the piece’s uneasy tone well, while still allowing moments of humour.

York is back onstage in the second piece, Kandahar. A vastly different role, he plays an American soldier who begins the play detailing appalling and bizarre conspiracies about women. LaBute then reveals more about the soldier (all of the characters in these plays remain unnamed) and his experiences in the army. These two themes collide in the confession of a terrible crime. York sits at a desk, largely motionless, while delivering his long monologue. He’s both chilling and an everyman. Kandahar raises thought-provoking points about army lifestyle, and how difficult it is for soldiers to switch off their propensity for violence once it’s been drummed into them. For these reasons, Kandahar was the strongest of the three short plays.

America The Beautiful ends on a lighter note, in a piece entitled The Possible. Anna María and Maya-Nika Bewley portray two women who first met months previously at a party. María’s character fell hard for Bewley’s and is convinced that they should be together, never mind the small snag that Bewley’s character is straight and has a boyfriend. It’s a more comedic play, while still containing edginess and tension. Though María’s role is the meatier part, both actresses give good performances.

Haddress uses the same minimal set for all three pieces, and his style ensures that they look and feel different. However, the differences between the plays proves detrimental to America The Beautiful, as there’s no clear thematic link between them. All are set in the US and focus on human relationships, though that’s not really a convincing connection. And although the order they were presented in worked well tonally, all three plays could lose five to ten minutes each to have a sharper impact. Despite this, LaBute’s writing is compelling, and the performances from the quartet of actors make America The Beautiful an intriguing evening of theatre.