Coyote on a Fence

Synopsis

Death Row in a jail somewhere in America. In adjacent cells are John - educated and arrogant editor of The Death Row Advocate and Bobby - a racist predator, convicted of an horrific crime. As final appeals approach, one man evokes sympathy, the other, derision. In America where the President has been responsible for more state executions than any other governor, Bruce Graham's Coyote on a Fence asks powerful questions about justice and revenge. Does a disturbed upbringing excuse a heinous crime? Is there room for mercy within a judicial system? Can one be innocent though proven guilty? And what is the morality of taking a life for a life?

Our Review:

29 April 2004

More of a death penalty polemic than a fully articulated or developed play, Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence states situations rather than dramatises them.

Sarah Esdaile’s production (that has transferred to the West End from the studio theatre of Manchester’s Royal Exchange) seeks to inject, so to speak, as much tension as possible into the long delayed but inexorable journey that the two Death Row inmates we meet are on towards the lethal injection execution chamber in an southern state American prison.

But you learn nothing here that you couldn’t discover in an Amnesty International report, Guardian feature or even the programme notes: ending up on death row is a lottery; the endless legal appeals are a desperate but inevitable attempt to fight the finality of the sentence any which way the prisoners can; and, despite the crimes they stand accused for, the perpetrators are human, too.

With the two prisoners acted with searing and co...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (213.162.122.71) - 17 May 2004:

A great show. Very well acted, especially Alex Ferns. Moving & funny. It was such a shame that the theatre was only half full, even on a Friday night. Such a wonderful production deserves a bigger audience...

Read more and add your own review