Jack Studio Theatre – until 29 November 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
3***
Editor Gloria (Juliet Welch) likes to have her journalists read their articles aloud to an audience as part of the editing process. It is late on a Friday night and Marianne (Molly Hanly) is reading her article about the environmental scandal she has discovered in the cranberry farms of Massachusetts. Interruptions with helpful corrections/unwanted bad jokes from Jennifer (Sydney Crocker) and Karl (Xavier Starr) frustrate Marianne at first, but their questions trigger flashback scenes to reveal details that are not included in the article. The switches between the Friday night and flashbacks are managed by simply sweeping desks around after questions or comments from Marianne’s colleagues.
There is a lot of information dropped in the first few minutes of the play, making the first interruption a blessed relief, but this fact drop is valuable establishing the hard slog of the cranberry farmers and their financial woes as the economy makes their traditional crop unprofitable and some turn to illegal mining to keep their heads above water.
As Marianne’s article and interviews continue, we meet Bailey and her half-brother Jeremy, who have despaired of the legislative level cronyism and corruption enabling illegal mining and pollution of aquifers, abandoned farming and rewilded land. Bailey’s hope for building a new community in the future is outwardly encouraged by Jeremy, but he is secretly taking a more active stance against the cranberry farmers.
Molly Hanly handles the huge amount of exposition Marianne has to wade through with skill, making her vulnerability and terror for the future more affecting as she breaks down. Juliet Welch is wonderful as the older (and wiser?) Gloria, calm, quiet but steely in her convictions. Xavier Starr and Sydney Crocker also shine in their roles, both with great comic timing. Joe Edgar writes with a sharp passion and also directs this well-meaning play, cramming a lot (maybe too much?) into 75 minutes, but allowing the conflict between debate and direct action to be explored in an entertaining, engaging and thought-provoking production.