23.5 Hours Review

September 10, 2024

23.5 Hours Review

4th September – 5th October 2024

How well do you ever know your partner? Relationships are built on trust and respect, but if that falters, can you ever return or is there always that niggle? That wondering? That “what if”?

23.5 Hours is a play about boundaries, law, consent, trust, loyalty and abuse of power. The play centres around husband Tom (David Sturzaker) and wife Leigh (Lisa Dwan), their son Nicholas (Jem Matthews) and friends Jayne (Allyson Ava-Brown) and Bruce (Jonathan Nyati). When Tom is released from jail after two years for sexual misconduct with one of his students performing in Romeo and Juliet (the parallels of underage relations are not lost on us), the play explores the effects his return has on those closest to him. It delves into the psyche of the characters, and whether you can ever really trust the one you love.

“23.5 Hours is a play about boundaries, law, consent, trust, loyalty and abuse of power”

Set in Midwest America, writer Carey Crim sets the scene by introducing us to two seemingly perfect couples in a seemingly perfect house, socialising, wine flowing. We learn that Tom had forgotten Leigh’s birthday this year and already alarm bells ring, given we know the subject of the play. Tom takes a phone call and their life changes forever.

We jump to Tom’s welcome home from prison party where only friends Jayne and Bruce have shown up. The awkwardness between all four characters is evident, despite Leigh’s best efforts to be cheerful and upbeat, and it is clear that she is putting on a mask. Determined to stand by her man and defend him every step of the way, friendships have fallen by the wayside, and others are soon to come, but is she confident in her convictions? (Incidentally, 23.5 Hours was originally called ‘Conviction’, and premiered In New York in 2014 starring American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson as Leigh.)

With her world slowly unravelling, and her son Nicholas turning to drugs and staying out all night, we witness Leigh’s faith in Tom wane. Whilst, on the one hand, we are charmed by Tom’s apparent proclamation of innocence, slips of the tongue and certain statements make us, the audience, start to open our eyes and question whether we are being sucked into a web of lies and deceit. By the end of the second half, 23.5 Hours had twisted and turned with a, perhaps, shocking ending depending very much on how you interpret it and read into it.

Whilst the subject matter is obviously very emotive, by the end of the first act, I didn’t care enough about the characters. They were so polished and perfect, with American smiles and stylish outfits, but lacked depth. Thank goodness for the second act. The grittiness, turmoil and emotion came, and we saw the fallout of the events leading up to some sad key moments. The question on the ages of consent varying in different areas was a discussion point, when it boils down to ‘he said, she said’, what is right, what is wrong, how big an age gap turns a relationship into one which is inappropriate, and how trial by media has overtaken innocence until proven guilty. 23.5 Hours was written before the #MeToo movement in 2017, where we finally heard the voices of the victims. This play chose not to feature the alleged victim – an interesting choice and one which I’m sure would have seriously affected our judgement had she been a scripted character.

The cast gave a solid performance with some welcome comedic moments from Ava-Brown, and the script was great. The main characters, however, lacked chemistry, and there were moments like when they were dancing in the sitting room that felt forced. It is certainly an interesting play, and very well-designed and directed, however, it just fails to hit the top spot – with some deeper character development and more emotion from the actors it could get that extra star as most of this production was just a bit too glossy for me and I was wishing away the first half.