Performance
Old Boy
Platform, The Bridge, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
four stars
In recent years, Glas(s) Performance has been putting everyday people and their stories on-stage - reminding us, without phoney dramatics, of how ordinary lives are the essential fabric of our society and its future.
Hand Me Down (2011) involved an extended, but close-knit, family of women highlighting the inherited traits that connected old and young alike. Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore, co-directors of Glas(s) Performance, were keen to do something similar with men. Old Boy has now materialised, a cheery-cheeky look at grandads and grandsons that harbours a hugely moving reflection of family ties across the generational divide. Love runs through every aspect of Old Boy like lettering in a stick of rock.
First up is Peter Hennessy and his one-year old grandson, Sam whose emerging vocabulary majors on the word “no!” when deciding what toys interest him - although what he clearly likes best is being lifted up by his totally smitten playmate grandpa. Eleven year old Kai Johnstone provides a thumbnail sketch of what 75 year olds like. Enter Les Johnstone and the pair launch into daft games of one-up-manship, groove to Les’s favourite ELO songs, share skoosh, biscuits and fun. Such camraderie acquires unexpected poignancy when Les describes his own boyhood, with a harsh father and the compensating role models of genial uncles. This is the legacy that influences his relationship with Kai, just as the post-war childhood of grandad Eoin McKenzie filters into his bantering collogues with the taller, younger 21 year old Eoin (Mcintyre). Social change has rendered their experiences poles apart, but student Eoin has already been well educated in what makes a man by his grandad’s stories about working as a welder, holding your first born - and expressing your feelings. Utterly life-affirming stuff.
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