Thirty-five years ago Edward Bond wrote a searing play called Saved including a scene in which a gang of lads stoned a baby to death because they had nothing better to do. In a brave piece of programming, that play's direct descendant can now be seen on Sheffield's main stage. If anything it is even more chilling.
Set on a Northern housing estate plagued by vandalism, threats of violence and thieving, Simon Bent's brilliant play, written with a Bondian economy, shows how poverty of education, expression, expectation and fellow feeling leads to appalling violence.
Part of the power of Bent's play is its ambiguity. Who exactly are the accomplices of the title? There is no doubt about the perpetrators of the crime: we watch Nicky and Stuart kicking a teenager to death. Afterwards they feel no remorse, no fear, no guilt. In fact Stuart quite fancies a shag. Both young men have a self-justifying swagger.
But others are implicated. Gary doesn't aim a single kick, but he is a Judas, betraying his former school friend and corrupted by his need for Nicky's friendship. Eddie, the dead boy's father, stands by, paralysed by fear and indecision, watching his son being murdered. His wife, Doreen, is one of those spry no-nonsense women full of moral certainty, who when it comes to ferreting out the truth from her sons makes the Spanish inquisition look amateurish.
Seven years earlier Doreen had started a petition to get the police to act against the estate's troublemakers. Now she regrets it. "If I'd done nothing... I should have kept my mouth shut." Yet this play is about the consequences of saying and doing nothing. Everyone is implicated, even the audience. We hold our tongues and avert our eyes as Nicky taunts Eddie while father watches son die: "You looking for help? Forget it dad, nobody helps anyone."
This is a brutal, clear-eyed, understated play that demonstrates what happens when people are stripped of hope and community, and neighbours become enemies.
Paul Miller's exquisitely judged production is played on an almost bare stage that becomes stained by blood and despair. It suggests all the frustration, tension and menace that lurks beneath the surface of everyday life. The cast play it to perfection, particularly Kenny Doughty as Paul, the son torn between his family and his own self-preservation, and Dylan Brown and James Weaver, both inadequates who become a lethal combination.
Until November 18. Details: 0114-249 6000.
