Trapping(s) @ theSpace, Venue45

Trapping(s) is a ‘Look Back in Nostalgia’ at student days centred around the memories evoked by a graduation day photograph.

The show weaves together ensemble musical numbers and sketches around the theme of the show: two bestest friends, who know each other to the smallest detail; some who never want school days to end; others with family concerns and no time to think of old friends. The sketches that raise the dramatic temperature best are those with an uncomfortable edge – a girl who simply can’t wait to dump her friends and her home, feeling the weight of every wasted second as an obstacle to her ambitions; another girl’s awful misperceptions of a first date; a rather ambiguous sketch of a bloke brutally telling his best mate he’s bored with him.

The ensemble work has some brilliant touches: a rather filmic use of a recorded soundtrack to show interior thoughts in a group sketch, and lots of inventive physical theatre (though each effect was lingered on rather too long, compared to the current masters in town).

However, the ‘snippets of memory’ format is too kaleidoscopic, and removes any sense of an overall dramatic shape. This is compounded by the rather amorphous feel of the setting. The conventions of the piece are reminiscent of the American High School familiar from films, yet it is obviously set in the UK. And the age-range of the graduates is equally hard to figure out.

Ultimately, it is hard to see who this show is aimed at. I’m not sure the lives described correlate to those of the older audience members (who says things never change?), those of younger years will more interested in vampires, and as for contemporaries – are partings so sudden and abrupt? There is Facebook, you know.