Red Bud

Synopsis

‘Me, Greg and Shane and Jason have been comin’ to this race since high school, no tents or anything back then. We’d just sleep in our clothes on blankets on the ground. Look up at the stars. Get high. Get drunk. Get wild.’ ‘Red Buuuud!’ rings out across the camp as five friends gather in ritual homage at the annual Motorcross championship. Greg used to ride with speed and style, but this year he brings his pregnant wife instead of his bike. Times have changed. As they relive past glories, the haze of beer and smoke can’t disguise their fading friendship. A new American drama about the creeping spread of middle age.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 26 October 2010

Those buddy boy get-togethers round the old camp fire always end in tears; or, in the case of Red Bud by Californian playwright Brett Neveu – arriving in Sloane Square via Iowa and Steppenwolf in Chicago – drunken misery, off-limits revelations, punch-ups and a flashing knife.

Billed as a breakthrough play, and commissioned by the Royal Court, Red Bud maintains the very high level of inoffensive effing bad language going on downstairs in Nina Raine’s far superior Tribes.

But, honestly, what do you expect from a bunch of blue collar losers maintaining a ritual of beer, burgers and bloody bad behaviour in a dusty camp site on the eve of a Michigan motorcycle rally?

The scuffed up field in Tom Hadley’s design occupies the whole of the Upstairs floor, and we are ranged around on three sides in two rows. We share the space with a beaten up truck and a couple of low-grade tent...

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Latest User Review

rds - 3 November 2010:

5 stars for the performances. This will, undoubtedly, be a difficult play for some people, but if you just go with the flow it is rewarding. Not I hasten to add necessarily for the writing (which could be a verbatim account of any gathering of hairy arsed macho males trying to recapture the magic of their youth) but in the extraordinarily vivid performances the director has drawn out of the superb cast. It is, at times, frighteningly vivid with members of the audience, sitting on the front rows, visibly disturbed by the action. The staging is extraordinary too with the space turned into a field complete with an obligatory SUV parked to one side. Only 65 minutes long, but exhilarating in it's power packed delivery, this is definitely one to see. ...

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