Two Come Home, King’s Head Theatre Review
Written by Charlotte for Theatre and Tonic.
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review. All opinions are our own.
It’s winter in rural Kentucky where ex-prisoner and recovered addict Evan Nicolson leads a solemn and solitary existence, until some old ghosts return to town to unbury a decade’s worth of pain. Joe Eason’s new play with music sets an unflinching gaze on cycles of poverty, addiction, and domestic violence in America’s rural southern communities.
The stage is simple, its chilled atmosphere set by flannel hunting jackets and the eerie echo of cello strings. Evan’s alcoholic mother (Nicola Goodchild) has returned from her latest tryst just as his father is nearing release from a decade in prison. She tears through his sleepy home like a storm, but he moves through life in spite of her, plucking out tunes on his guitar and working monotonous shifts at the local diner until a man he hasn’t seen for ten years walks through the doors – Jimmy Thomas, a local boy who got out, who went to college, married, had a son, everything Evan never got the chance to do. Jimmy Thomas, who Evan’s father nearly killed when he found the boys together ten years earlier. What follows is an intimate and gruesome reflection on what it means to face up to unfathomable guilt and break free from generational demons.
Eason’s hauntingly melodic score is a perfect complement to the play’s affect. Performed by a tight trio of on-stage musicians, it sets just the right atmosphere for each and every narrative beat. The music works in natural tandem with the script, an all too rare accomplishment for many plays with music, not only bolstering the emotional resonance of the piece but also stylistically matching its deep connection with pace. There is one moment in particular wherein Eason pierces the play’s black cloud of despair with a beautifully unfussy performance of Nicolson’s songwriting, and it feels almost as if he has built small rays of sunlight into a brewing storm, striking an apt balance of weight and levity.
Read more: Interview with Joe Eason, Two Come Home
As lovers with an ocean of traumatic history between them, Evan and Jim are played with striking depth by Eason himself and Ben Maytham respectively. The chemistry between them is immediate and magnetic, both Eason and Maytham giving deeply felt performances that elevate the show with genuine tenderness.
There is little about Two Come Home that misses the mark, but there are a handful of times where the generally solid supporting performances tip toward melodrama. If anything, the momentary lapses into over-acting may well emerge from the thickness of the dialects, which are not badly adopted in themselves, but do appear to put a slight strain on certain actors’ intonational range.
Overall, Two Come Home proves to be an emotional heavy-hitter in the Camden Fringe lineup and an accomplishment in the medium of plays with music. While it may not break much new thematic ground, it delivers a stirring portrait of queer masculinity against a refreshingly authentic and compassionately constructed backdrop of rural communities and their long-buried skeletons.
At King’s Head Theatre until 18 August.
★ ★ ★ ★
