Some stories need to be told. This is one. David Holthouse was seven when he was raped by his neighbours’ 17-year-old son, a star athlete, in the basement while his parents played cribbage upstairs. For years, the shame was so great he told no one about his ordeal, but when he discovered that his rapist had moved to the city where he lived, he planned revenge.
This is a story of damage, shame, silence, retribution and a child trying to protect the parents who couldn’t protect him. Holthouse has already told it via journalism and on the brilliant US radio series This American Life. But in its current clumsy stage form, the story works less well, though the core narrative is gripping and there’s a committed cast and a design which, with its sporting trophies and bats and racquets, conjures both an apple-pie Boy’s Own den and a crime scene.
The problem is in the structure, and resulting inability to build tension. Three scenes have real power, in particular David’s mother’s phone call to the parents of the rapist, but the characters are sketchily drawn and we never get sufficiently inside David’s head. The flat naturalism leaches energy and mutes the emotional effect, and the tight focus on one man’s vengeful odyssey neglects wider issues, including the need for justice not only for Holthouse, but all survivors of rape and sexual abuse.
- At Southwark Playhouse, London, until 6 August. Box office: 020-7407 0234.
