Theatre review: Citizen Y - Nighthawks

Published on Thursday 9 April 2009 19:45

CITIZEN Y – NIGHTHAWKS CITIZENS' THEATRE, GLASGOW * * *

TODAY'S teenagers have immeasurably greater access to information than any previous generation. And yet, suggests this new production by the Citizens' Young Company, they are destined to remain frightened by the world and bewildered by its endless choices, continually struggling to establish their identities.

As in the famous Edward Hopper painting of the same name, Nighthawks is set in a detached nocturnal nowhere, where relationships are vague and inexplicable and where there is an underlying mood of menace. In the twilight between childhood and maturity, a succession of wayward souls traverse a scarcely recognisable Glasgow, seeking the secret nightclub where they hope to find answers or simply cross the threshold into adulthood.

Drunken girls on a night out, internet conspiracy theorists, local thugs and even Ludwig Wittgenstein meet and interact in Peter Arnott's offbeat narrative, which is occasionally gauche in terms of "Who am I?" philosophising and the play's condemnation of bourgeois existence, but boasts lively and often funny dialogue.

The youthful cast acquit themselves well, generally resisting the opportunities to emotively grandstand that the script affords them, though Chris McCann's flourishes as the anachronistic Wittgenstein are certainly surreally entertaining. For all the questions it raises, there are few if any answers in the play, outwith perhaps a belief in the pre-eminence of the individual. But then the fear and uncertainty of the journey towards adulthood is undoubtedly the point.