It’s never made clear what Valdez (Waj Ali), or rather, Mr Valdez, as his fellow inmate Wallace (Richard Harrington), likes to call him, actually did that warranted a long prison sentence. It’s never made clear what Wallace did or didn’t do either, although his story contains some details about signing off on false statements and testimonies under threat of being mutilated if he didn’t ‘confess’. The play is set in a non-specific country where even expressing an opinion could result in jail time (rather scarily, it could feasibly be Britain in 2024) and where even the prison guards don’t necessarily know what inmates did.
The play is made even more opaque by some wordplay, intricate and sophisticated though it is, as the rather academic Wallace maintains, as best he can, a sense of balance in practically everything, thinking things through methodically. When Valdez wants to know if he can trust Wallace, Wallace flips the question: does Valdez have the capacity to trust in the first place? If he has reached the point where he trusts no one, then he can’t trust Wallace, but that isn’t personal. This might just be the one of the most, if not the most, philosophical plays set in a prison I’ve ever come across.
There are two inmates, but three cells on stage, for reasons explained in the narrative. The duo are occasionally visited by Smash (Ross Tomlinson), a prison officer battling his own demons. Smash begins with typical prison guard abruptness, barking orders and making demands, but this is not, in the end, without giving too much away, someone who would end up using the Nuremberg Trials ‘I was only following orders’ defence should the dictatorship under which he works were to collapse at some point and all sorts of officials are later hauled before the courts. In essence, he doesn’t like his job. At all.
But his character does bring to the table something other than the usual sweeping statements in prison plays about how terrible the government is and how heroic and brave illegally (by modern democratic standards, that is) incarcerated people are. Smash’s nuanced perspective doesn’t always feel nuanced, particularly when he’s describing an incident that felt (to me) as though it were written by Stephen King and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Nonetheless, the play is denied an unequivocal antagonist, at least in the traditional sense. Wallace seems to have accepted his fate as though it were merely tragic circumstances rather than the calculated actions of a rogue state.
Given the bleak conditions and prospects for Valdez and Wallace (or is it Wallace and Valdez?), there’s a surprising amount of humour in this play. Wallace is the more articulate of the two, though Ali’s Valdez didn’t come across to me as any less thoughtful, but rather as more introverted. There are some intriguing observations in how these characters make the best of their situation. Iya Patarkatsishvili’s direction gives what could potentially have been a rather dry show (it is talking heads in jail for the most part) some verve and dramatic tension. A thoughtful and multilayered, if abstract, production that convincingly reveals various facets of human nature.
Review by Chris Omaweng
In a brutal totalitarian regime, two strangers are imprisoned for reasons unknown. Wallace and Valdez communicate only through their cell walls, navigating waves of hope and disillusionment whilst seeking an escape route.
Finding solace in one another they create their own philosophies in an attempt to assign meaning to their state of confinement. Meanwhile, their torturer finds himself torn between his duty and his own self-revulsion and plans a showdown that will change everything.
COMPANY
Valdez – Waj Ali
Wallace – Richard Harrington
Smash – Ross Tomlinson
Understudy – James Physick
CREAITVES
Writer – Craig Wright
Director – Iya Patarkatsishvili
Designer – Simon Kenny
Lighting Designer – Anna Watson
Sound Designer – Mike Walker
Co-Director – James Robert Moore
Composer – Danny Short
Casting Director – Chloe Blake
Associate Designer – Ruth Hall
Fight Director – Claire Llewellyn (RC-Annie)
THE UNSEEN
Riverside Studios, 101 Queen Caroline Street, London W6 9BN
15 November to 14 December 2024
