CRUSH

CRUSH puts two Somali teenagers together in a therapy waiting room and lets romance develop around them. It touches on Somali experience, politics and masculinity, but the material stays frustratingly close to the surface when there is clearly much more depth available.

Mohamed Hashi is a strong performer as Zakariya, while Hadsan Mohamud is considerably weaker as Najma. More damaging is the underused story. The eating disorder that brings Najma into therapy never develops a clear relationship with the broader themes the play seems to be reaching towards, leaving some of its most obvious possibilities unexplored.

The sound design does little to help. Clichéd ethereal loops sit beneath the deeper monologues but add little, and may even be intended to make us feel as though we were drowning. Instead, the writing leaves us doing most of the work.

There is material here that could go somewhere. It does not.

Runs 5–16 August and 18–30 August at 3:55pm.