Guardians, by Lucy Caldwell, High Tide Festival, The Cut, Halesworth, May 6A YOUNG couple are celebrating their first year of marriage. They are living in a house owned by the young man's parents, now globe-trotting.

David Green

Guardians, by Lucy Caldwell, High Tide Festival, The Cut, Halesworth, May 6

A YOUNG couple are celebrating their first year of marriage. They are living in a house owned by the young man's parents, now globe-trotting.

Happiness turns to misery during the course of this play as the couple find they are out of love. Nothing new in that, of course, and that is the problem with this script - lack of novelty.

In contrast to the story, the technical side of this production is very sophisticated with a set surrounded by curtains on which a variety of images is projected - creating a garden of flowers, then an interior of portraits and, finally, Christmas decorations.

Sound and lighting were also excellent - two skills which are now inherently good in the High Tide festival.

The set was a room in which all the furniture and objects (and even the chairs of the audience) were packaged in material - for me a rather obscure symbolism, perhaps meant to demonstrate that here were lives in transit or limbo. Even the individual blooms of a bunch of peonies bought by Connor for Molly were packaged.

The performances of the two actors, Andrew Simpson, as Connor, the Northern Ireland boy set on becoming a lawyer and Sonya Cassidy as Molly, the American girl trying to find an answer to the meaning of her life through family videos, were outstanding. Here were two very talented young people. A scene of tension in the failing relationship was electric.

However, two thirds through this play I started asking myself the question: where is this play heading. And the answer soon became clear: nowhere.

It is difficult to imagine how this script got through the fiercely competitive scrutiny process for the festival for, despite the technical brilliance, the material was of mundane value and on a tired subject much visited by young writers cutting their teeth in the profession.

David Green