Review: 9 CIRCLES at Park Theatre 29 June - 23 July 2022

‘This production makes for an all-round captivating watch’ ★★★★

In 2006, 20-year-old Private First Class Steven Dale Green rapes 14-year-old civilian Abeer Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi. He then proceeds to shoot her, her parents and her 6-year-old sister before setting their home on fire in South Baghdad. He is found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment the same year.

In House of Cards writer Bill Cain’s 9 CIRCLES, Green becomes Reeves, a young fatherless Texan with an anti-social personality disorder and lethal fantasies, accused of identical crimes. We follow his descent into hell, from honourably dismissed private to Public Enemy No.1 to (spoiler alert) his execution by lethal injection. A modern Dantesque journey into a chemically-sizzling Inferno.

This production makes for an all-round captivating watch.

In our post-pandemic-pre-WW3-mid-what-fresh-hell-will-today’s-news-bring climate, it is painfully easy to see the relevance of 9 CIRCLES. In the parallel it naturally draws between the US invasion of Iraq and the Russian invasion in Ukraine. In its emphasis on how governments use patriotic propaganda to justify Messianic blood baths on foreign soil and recruit young impressionable minds, eager to find their glory and place in life and bring back dignity to a once great nation. Add a high-profile trial where the public defender repeatedly begs the jury to make the law “the last line of defence” of a powerless rape victim and this 2009 play may give you full 2022 whiplash.

Guy Masterson’s direction keep things tight and moving. The play is staged in the round, with Duncan Henderson’s circular set subjecting Reeves’ every move to our uninterrupted judgement. And with very little room between the audience and the supporting characters orbiting Reeves’ circle of hell, everyone gets real close real quick. A treat for an English audience who just thrives on unexpected physical intimacy. Tom Turner’s minimalist lighting design and Jack Arnold’s ominous soundscape complete this sensorially and intellectually stimulating production.

Top Boy Joshua Collins takes the lead as Reeves with great stamina and generosity in a relentless 90-min acting tour-de-force. Like a young Jake Gyllenhaal circa Donnie Darko, his boyish smile and swagger charm as much as they unnerve. He is joined by David Calvitto, Daniel Bowerbank and Samara Neely Cohen in a series of disturbing duologues on the hypocrisy of war and the mistreatment of a traumatized cannon fodder youth who has everything taken from them, up to the (military) shirt off their back.

Photography: Mark Douet

9 CIRCLES

Written by Bill Cain | Directed by Guy Masterson

Starring Joshua Collins, Samara Neely-Cohen and David Calvitto

29 June – 23 July, Park Theatre, Park 90

Box Office https://parktheatre.co.uk/whats-on/9-circles

3 August – 29 August, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17)

Presented by Collins Cohen Productions and Guy Masterson - Theatre Tours International Ltd in association with Park Theatre

Reviewed by Klervi Gavet