by David Greig
seen at the Donmar warehouse on 4 July 2019
Michael Longhurst, taking over as Artistic Director of the Donmar, has chosen to revive David Greig's 1994 play set in an abandoned railway station in an unspecified (but probably Eastern) European country near 'the border'. Ron Cook plays Fret, the station master, with Faye Marsay as Adele, his assistant, Billy Howle as Adele's husband Berlin, Theo Barklem-Biggs as Horse and Stephen Wight as Billy, Berlin's friends, Shane Zaza as Morocco, a local boy made good, Kevork Malikyan as Sava, a refugee, and Natalia Tena as his daughter Katya.
Written during the period in which the former Yugoslavia was being torn apart by war and 'ethnic cleansing', Europe nonetheless still packs a powerful punch. The small town is dying now that its importance as a border crossing has vanished, and automation is making its industrial workforce redundant - Berlin, Horse and Billy are now at a loose end. Stationmaster Fret appears at first to be an old-fashioned martinet swamped by the illogicality of train timetables which no longer include stops at his station, and he has no sympathy for a man and woman he finds waiting on the station, apparently impervious to his announcements that there will be no trains. Adele, stifled in her marriage to the unimaginative and truculent Berlin, dreams of glamorous foreign capitals.
