CHAT ROOM by Enda Walsh
Presented by The Nomes
Young Minds is a charity facility helping children with mental health problems to overcome - in its own words ‘ the voice for young people’s mental health and wellbeing’. It’s hard to imagine a better cause. This play has as its focus the interplay and prima facie cameraderie but also the potential harm that a disparate group can engender
Eight teenagers are in contact via their laptops and mobiles in various chat rooms. These are mysterious things even at best - are the participants really who they say they are ? are they genuinely curious or plain nosey ? do they truly empathise with others or do they have a different agenda..even a sinister agenda ? Blackhearted cynics such as your scribe would not go near them under any circumstance, such is my distrust and scepticism. Yet chat rooms do clearly have an appeal to some.
In this tale, which had a ring of true authenticity because these cyberspace travellers look, dress and speak exactly like afficianado’s of the chat rooms, the exchanges range from the selfish to the serious, from the naive to the acerbic. from the innocent to the calculated….by turns the characters are dismissive, concerned, involved, detached, cheerful and utterly downbeat
Tyler played a bright correspondent but a misguided one at times ; Tilly and Catrina portrayed carefree but absorbed participants well. Laura and James pitched their characters adroitly and with admirable agility. never stopping acting as the story progressed. Julia, sensing the bad situation looming exploded in fine style, bumping things back to earth, whilst Hazel was robust and clear, as she seems to be in all the Nomads productions she graces. NIck as the ingenue had a childlike presence shot through with common sense and a painful openness that spells potential danger for him, may we see more of him in future productions
The atmosphere was convincingly built, the ominous climax could have been slightly more stark for fuller impact, but this is but a minor carp and the director can be proud of this cast and the spell it created for us
Victor