William Robinson (left) plays Darren, and Corey Montague-Sholay is Mark in Sophie Swithinbank’s two-hander Bacon, a presentation of the International Fringe Encore Series at the SoHo Playhouse.
The journey from boy to manhood is fraught with dangers. A superb new play, Sophie Swithinbank’s Bacon, underscores this reality as she dramatizes the passage of two teens into adulthood. Directed by Matthew Iliffe, Bacon is both a cautionary tale and an unflinching exploration of masculinity, sexuality, and power. A sold-out production at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it is now part of the International Fringe Encore Series at the SoHo Playhouse.
A giant seesaw provides the main set piece for actors Robinson (left) and Montague-Sholay in Bacon.
The plot revolves around the reunion of two young men, Mark (Corey Montague-Sholay) and Darren (William Robinson), whose shared past is told in a series of flashbacks that retrace their unlikely friendship. They are both students at St. Michael’s School in Isleworth, London. Mark, the new kid, is quiet, well-groomed, and a diligent student, with an overprotective single mother. Determined to succeed, he color-codes his population map for his geography class and soaks up his lessons like a sponge.
Darren, in contrast, is an outspoken rebel with dirty fingernails and cuts on his body, the results of the beatings from his widower dad. A notorious mischief-maker, Darren refuses to sign the school’s Good Behavior Contract (“I’m not signing anything. I want my lawyer”) and then exercises his supposed agency by smoking cigarettes on school property. He spends more time in detention than in the classroom.
Whereas Darren continually dances on the edge of danger, Mark at first plays it safe, seeing Darren’s fast-and-loose behavior as self-defeating. Even so, Mark finds that making friends at his new school is tough. When he comes across students watching porn on the sly he’s disheartened and realizes that his mother might have been wrong to transplant him to this Catholic school:
Mom has not quite clocked that this school is worse. She thinks it’s good coz it’s Catholic, but actually it’s full of nutters who have probably got knives in their socks and guns in their pants.
To make things worse, Darren needles Mark about being a fearful loner.
Mark, man. You’re scared to go to the toilet. In case they come in. Just admit it. You don’t take a shit ’til you go home.
So whether it’s peer pressure, loneliness, or perhaps his gay sexual awakening, Mark finds that he and Darren are chumming around—and entangling themselves in a toxic relationship.
Comprised of 23 short scenes, the play toggles between the present and the past, with Ryan Joseph Stafford’s protean lighting signaling the time shifts. At times Swithinbank uses the device of split scenes, in which Mark and Darren cannot see or hear each other as they tell their respective stories. Swithinbank has crafted these duologues so that the voices of Mark and Darren, though seeming to overlap, remain completely distinct. Perhaps the real message that she wants to drive home is that Mark and Darren are conversationally challenged. To have a real conversation, after all, one must trust another person.
Robinson plays the rebellious Darren (left), and Montague-Sholay is the reserved Mark in Swithinbank’s play, directed by Matthew Iliffe. Photographs by Ali Wright.
Natalie Johnson’s spartan set is dominated by a giant seesaw that emphasizes the protagonists in Bacon are essentially children—but it also allows the audience to watch the power plays executed by Mark and Darren, who jump on and off it.
The title refers to the bacon roll that Mark buys at the school canteen for Darren. And, to add some atmosphere to this event that seals the friendship between Mark and Darren, sound designer Mwen provides the sound of bacon slabs frying. Indeed, one can almost smell the sizzling slices.
The acting is excellent. Robinson, as Darren, makes no bid for sympathy as a victim of domestic violence. The actor simply embodies the teen’s raw, strident personality. With his unkempt school uniform and short-cropped hair, Darren could be any impoverished teen one might unknowingly pass on the street.
As Darren’s best mate Mark, Montague-Sholay has more to do. The actor must ride through fear, loneliness, rage, and humiliation. Although he is very funny when he is learning to smoke “weed,” he is mostly a serious-minded teen in search of an identity. Mark, in fact, is the one who continually strives to gain control of the story, even though he realizes that his story is also Darren’s story. Or, as he poignantly puts it at play’s end, “The memories are imprinted in my mind like ink.”
In Bacon, Swithinbank sends the audience crashing into one of life’s awful instances of teens gone wrong—and leaves one to contemplate the wreckage of these young lives. Her play packs a real punch. See it, discuss it.
The Hannah Farley-Hills for HFH Productions of Bacon runs at the SoHo Playhouse (15 Vandam St.) through Jan. 28. Evening performances are at 5 p.m. on Jan. 21 and 28, at 7 p.m. on Jan. 14, 17, 22, 25, 27, and at 9 p.m. on Jan. 13, 23, and 26. For tickets and more information, visit sohoplayhouse.com.
Playwright: Sophie Swithinbank
Director: Matthew Iliffe
Set & Costumes: Natalie Johnson
Lighting: Ryan Joseph Stafford
Sound: Mwen
