ajhlovestheatre

WOLVES ON ROAD 

by Beru Tessema 

directed by Daniel Bailey

Bush Theatre, London – until 21 December 2024

https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/event/wolves-on-road/

The shady world of cryptocurrency goes under the microscope in Beru Tessema’s stimulating new play. It may be the principal subject but it’s far from the sole preoccupation of an ambitious, slightly unwieldy work that frequently engrosses, and just occasionally bewilders. Wolves On Road defies genre categorisation as it moves between sparky urban comedy, heartfelt family drama, gripping thriller…and back again. Ultimately, it’s a cautionary tale for wealth- and surface-obsessed times.

It has some of the hallmarks of Tessema’s earlier, more satisfying, play for the Bush, 2022’s House Of Ife. This new one has a similar earthy sense of humour, sometimes abrupt segues into the deadly serious, and a clear-eyed, unsentimental but heartfelt appreciation of the human and spiritual cost to Africans forced to migrate for reasons of safety and finance. It centres on best friends Manny and Abdul (Kieran Taylor-Ford and Hassan Najib), young East Londoners who get into cryptocurrency trading as a means to escape prospect-less, rudderless lives. Merry comedy gives way to something more alarming as the young men draw their nearest and dearest, as well as sizeable swathes of their community, into the unpredictable swamp of apparently unregulated wealth amassment.

Director Daniel Bailey proved with the universally acclaimed Red Pitch that his approach to staging is refreshingly unencumbered by traditional spaces and he goes one better here, utilising the entire Bush auditorium to galvanising effect. Actors enter through the house and mingle with the audience, a Ted Talk about the heady benefits of non-conventional financial practices (delivered by Hamilton’s Jamael Westman in full cockney rock star mode) has a festive, rally-like atmosphere, facts and figures in eye-catching multicoloured graphics are beamed onto the walls of Amelia Jane Hankin’s set, along with live-filmed close-ups of the actors faces. It’s flashy and high tech, which feels appropriate for the subject matter, but never at the expense of the human beings at the story’s heart.

There are a few sight line issues if you’re seated at the side, but the pace and focus of Bailey’s staging are irresistible, as is the sensory elan of Ali Hunter’s transformative, colourful lighting. The writing and production sensitively make clear the disparity between generations: while Manny and Abdul are all about getting filthy rich as quickly as possible, Manny’s mum Fevan (Alma Eno) is working slowly but steadily towards her dream of having her own restaurant, abetted by her gentle boyfriend Markos (Ery Nzaramba). 

It’s not that the elders and youngsters necessarily have such different dreams in the long term, but they have very different methods of achieving them. Markos meanwhile is also saving money to get his son, a similar age to Manny, to the UK from Ethiopia, possibly with the aid of unscrupulous people traffickers, which adds another layer of contrast and dramatic interest.

Tessema and Taylor-Ford chart convincingly the way sudden newfound wealth swiftly alters Manny from cocksure but likeable to something rather more cynical and sinister, but the gear changes in a confrontation scene with Markos, which sees the older man reveal some surprising and distressing personal details, are too abruptly done, as is its denouement which sees Fevan getting involved. It’s undeniably griping though, but not as much as a second act sequence where a family birthday party is decimated by sudden changes in bitcoin fortunes (the characters spend large swathes of the play with their mobile phones jammed in their faces….art mirroring life). 

The overlong script has a tendency to repetition that sometimes gets wearisome, and the storytelling could be clearer. It has an episodic structure -a parade of brief scenes- that might have worked better on screen were it not for the bold theatricality of Bailey’s staging. Nor did I fully buy the relationship between getting Fevan and anxious Markos. There’s still a lot here to like however, especially the sharp, timely humour, and these characters that feel authentically like people walking the streets right outside this theatre.

As Manny, charismatic Taylor-Ford looks like a real star-in-the-making, and the hugely likeable Najib impressively straddles Abdul’s opposing twin attitudes of masculine bravado and winded child. Physically and vocally, Eno reads as way too young to be mother to a twenty one year old and has a tendency to throw away her lines, which might work brilliantly on screen but becomes distractingly indistinct on stage. Nzaramba invests eager-to-please Markos with a touching sincerity and humour, but also finds a genuine gravitas when he is forced to fight his corner.

This is a viscerally exciting production of an uneven but entertaining and thought provoking script, and it’s refreshing to see a new play that feels so current and tackles a subject seldom, if ever, seen onstage. I wish its multiple thematic strands were manipulated with a little more finesse but it’s undoubtedly an ebullient evening loaded with talent. The quizzical ending feels exactly right, suggesting each of the young men has learnt quite different takeaway lessons from their tumultuous shared history, and has a pleasing ambiguity that seems apiece with Wolves On Road’s unconventional subject matter.