Theatre
Toy Plastic Chicken
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
three stars
Truth can often be stranger than fiction – so it’s worth noting that Uma Nada-Rajah’s comedy is based on real-life experiences. But even with the writer’s determination to find a ridiculous, silly side to proceedings, what happens to Rachel as she goes through airport security is no joke.
The toy plastic chicken that’s meant as a daft gift lays more than an egg in front of an excessively punctilious member of staff. For the nit-picking Ross (David James Kirkwood) this opportunity to prove his ‘vigilance credentials’ might bring about hoped-for promotion – however his over-reaction to the battery-powered hen prompts a security alert and sees Rachel (Neshla Caplan) kept in a holding area and questioned according to Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act.
The interaction between Ross and Rachel (Neshla Caplan) during the ensuing interview walks an astute tightrope between farce and bleak believability. Rachel’s ethnicity, her admission that she’s traveling to Istanbul to meet a man with Iranian parentage... The dots are all there to raise suspicions of domestic radicalisation, and as Kirkwood pounces on inconsequential details – wilfully taking them out of context – Caplan’s well-observed blend of bewilderment, anger, restraint (in hopes of boarding her flight) is increasingly disquieting to watch.
There is no reason to detain her, and yet ‘evidence’ is being gathered in scary way. This is where Ross’s colleague Emma (Anna Russell Martin) and her sub-plot come into play. Revelations of Emma’s apparent abuse by their (unseen) manager creeps in like a parallel to the humiliation being visited on Rachel. That Emma – whose world-weary disenchantment with her job is nicely caught by Martin’s body language and tone of voice – is colluding in what is essentially bullying, is, however, almost a distracting red herring. The absurdities, prejudices, dubious moralities and issues of racism are already in place as a two-hander between Ross and Rachel. Director Paul Brotherston keeps things usefully brisk in the bagging area.
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