This was a totally engaging evening, with a great play, excellent acting and a clever and dramatic set. Written in the 1990s by David Greig, the play felt entirely contemporary, capturing issues with which we wrestle today. The action is set in a small central European border town that has fallen on hard times because the border is no longer relevant and trains do not stop there anymore. The ensuing poverty of the town has stoked a rise in skinhead activity that comes to an ugly head as the play progresses.
Initially, we are introduced to the station master and his female assistant together with and emigrant and his daughter who have hit upon the town as a place to stay for a few days. The militaristic station master is initially hostile but thaws when the emigrent father reveals his love of trains and timetables and they become friends; meanwhile the assistant and the daughter embark on an affair with the assistant planning to leave the town for a life of adventure in the big wide world. The skinheads, one of whom is the assistant's husband bewildered by the emptiness of his marriage do not take kindly to the new arrivals or the turn of events; they beat up the father and, in an increasingly tense and escalating implosion end up petrol-bombing the station, incinerating the station master and the father, who have remained in the town after the assistant and the daughter have set off on the bus.
Time passed quickly in this captivating evening. The acting was complemented by an extremely clever set with lighting and sound effects that evoked convincingly the trains passing through the town as well as the arrival and departure of the bus. All in all a great evening that I'd happily repeat and that thoroughly deserved the four stars awarded by the FT
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