The Donmar Warehouse has moved into this Whitehall studio for a 12-week season to promote the work of young directors. Charlotte Westenra, the first beneficiary, has come up with a fine, well-acted production of a 70-minute play by Beau Willimon. However, though set during the trauma of Hurricane Katrina, it ultimately lacks real drama.
Willimon appears to have taken a hint from Paul Chan's alfresco Waiting for Godot, performed in the hard-hit ninth ward of New Orleans. He shows us two African-Americans stranded on a rooftop, hoping for rescue, the corpse of a friend at their feet. Malcom, a tough guy turned Bible student, and his young companion, E-Z, bicker, banter and play guessing games to pass the time. What emerges is an uneasy father-son relationship, relieved by Malcom's occasional retelling of Bible stories – the best of which offers an alternative version of the Flood in which Noah becomes the ultimate black survivor.
But Willimon resorts to one particularly desperate dramatic device, easily guessable from the programme, to keep the situation going. And it strikes me as bizarre that his two characters hardly refer to the one subject that would be uppermost on their minds: the staggering federal and civic incompetence that saw so many lives sacrificed.
The pleasure lies in the performance. Ray Fearon as Malcom displays a formidable power that suggests he could have punched something more than a Bible in his time, and Anthony Welsh is full of raw anger as the younger man. Despite Westenra's vividly atmospheric production, though, Willimon's play is a self-conscious piece that tells us little about the criminal negligence behind the disaster.
