★★★★ – Packed more than a few punches.
‘The Pyramid Texts’, written by the BAFTA winning writer Geoff Thompson, depicts the raw emotions of a prize-fighter: fear.
It was almost like an allegorical journey of what fear represents and the expectations of those who feel it. It was a one-man show performed by Christopher Fairbank, which complemented the writing most bitter-sweetly.
Fear. This is the central theme of ‘The Pyramid Texts’ and it is also the tool that Geoff used to create climax and tension. The stigma attached to boxer champions is that they are fearless and, not only that, that they see anyone possessing it, as a weakness. The play turns this concept, quite literally, on its head.
Geoff brilliantly writes an account of a boxer who has had 90 wins and 20 losses, which has made him a huge boxing name, and an icon for youngsters to follow. Phrases such as ‘they come in dead, some of them’, showing that young men or boys that come in through this boxer’s gym are broken and have nowhere to go, is heart-wrenching and tear-jerking for the spectators. You see through the eyes of the boxer that each young player in his gym has left a scar, and an equally sore wound that keeps bleeding.
The twist comes when we find out that the best boxer he had ever trained, who had ‘the best left hook’, was indeed his son, who out of fear, he rejected and abandoned. Christopher owned this play with his seeming native ability to summon emotion on stage. It was as if Christopher’s own child was the one who had gone through what ‘Brown Bomber’ experienced.
The intelligent device used to tell the story was a camera set on a tripod, which for the whole hour, Christopher played to. It worked brilliantly, as it was a confession- style piece. The audience felt drawn to the action even when the action was not directly performed to them.
The ending was sublime when the boxer tells us that the ‘Brown Bomber’s’ mother asked him why he is not crying at the deathbed of his own son, to which he replies: ‘we do not cry in our family’, and as he says this he breaks down in tears himself. It appeared a life-long release that has been bottled in all his life, for his dad believed that fear made men weak too. It is touching when he says to camera that he had never let his son experience fear, and he soon realised that his son’s biggest fear was him.
Though Christopher played the part incredibly natural and playing the emotional sequences most convincingly, I felt that there were moments in the play that were written to be slightly funnier than performed. However, the obvious hilarity came through spectacularly.
I came out of the play being taught a life lesson. Through Geoff’s writing and Christopher’s acting, we were shown that it is natural to be afraid, but we need to channel that fear into something powerful and not let it take over us.
Birmingham Rep 26-30 May,
Soho Theatre: 15-20 June
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