Care Takers (Re:Play 2010) – Library Theatre, Manchester

Writer/Director: Billy Cowan

Music: Jamie Summers

Reviewer: Katherine Kirwin

The Public Reviews Rating:

Truant Company are a company which focus upon creating new theatrical work which examines the world from the perspective of queer identity and sub-culture. Care Takers was performed at The Lowry, The Oldham Coliseum and The Unity in Liverpool as part of homotopia and was selected to be part of the Re:Play festival, as an example of the best theatre seen in smaller venues across Manchester & Salford in 2009.

In Care Takers we are presented with a naturalistic setting of a deputy head’s office in a school and the two actresses portrayed a series of escalating encounters between a new teacher (strong performance by Annamarie Bayley)and her deputy head (Penny McDonald). The NQT believes a pupil in her class is being bullied because he is gay however the deputy head, desperate for promotion, wants to take a laissez-faire attitude toward the situation and let the children sort it out. However, from the outset the script suggests that there is an agenda behind her refusal to get involved or incorporate homophobia into their PSHE lessons.

This was a strongly written piece of theatre which, as a teacher’s daughter I can confirm, was bang-on with it’s language and “teacher-isms” making it amusing and well-researched. The politics of the teacher who has risen into management versus the newly qualified teacher who cares and is involved with the children at a grass-roots level was interesting and engaging although didn’t really bring anything new to the table. The performances were very pacy and the cutting over each-other’s speech was amusing and effective at first, but began to wear thin towards the end. The issue of the teaching of homophobia as a mainstream PSHE issue alongside racism and sex education in schools was raised well and interestingly dramatised, however, I felt it left without much hope.

At several points within the play the phrase ‘those who care don’t stay’ was repeated and we were left with the conclusion that the children of the school were doomed to being taught only by teachers that no longer cared about their pastoral care, but rather are interested in reaching governmental targets. The exit of rachel, the NQT, appeared to confirm that there is no-one willing to work within the system and change things from the grass-roots level, which appeared fatalistic and didn’t provide us, as the audience, with a sense of an opportunity or hopeful conclusion which I feel was necessary following the drama, arguing and persistent high passion held through the play.