Beautiful Burnout

The National Theatre of Scotland, even after the international success of Blackwatch is still willing to experiment with adventurous theatre-making. Their predominantly young casts – often recent graduates from the RSAMD – and collaborations with companies like Frantic Assembly, one of British Physical Theatre's originators, suggest that the NTS is looking both for another hit show and ways around bland drama.

Beautiful Burnout does fall between two stools: the boxing match finale and montages of training leap from the heavy script as examples of how movement can be more expressive than words. Yet much of the play is given over to Bryony Lavery's script, which is a relatively pedestrian, chronological study of one boy's journey towards destiny.

Like Lavery's last play seen at Tramway, Kursch, the essential tragedy is not trusted enough to carry the emotional weight and a secondary, irrelevant disaster is thrown in. Never really deciding whether it wants to be naturalistic or speak directly to the audience, the script lumbers against the sleek footwork of the dance sequences.

A curious hybrid of traditional play and Dance Theatre, Beautiful Burnout is supported by strong central performances and there are moments of sublime beauty. A boxer finding himself slowly suffocating beneath the weight of his success is crucified against television screens; intimate moments are played out in the corner. And Lavery insists on covering all angles, albeit incompletely, from female boxing, the reasons why mothers might accept their sons competing at such risk, even the dubious motivations of the trainer and referree.

The question of whether this is physical or scripted theatre may seem academic, but it is this tension that weakens Burnout. Never sure what it wants to be, it wanders from its purpose and is a tough slap when it could have been a knock out.