As noted in a programme glossary, Sorter takes its title from a term that refers to a drug (usually heroin) that is used instead of money as payment for work. Written by and starring Richard Mylan, consisting of two interweaving and eventually interconnected monologues, it is an unflinching account of how opioid addiction shapes the lives of two characters: Example A, a young mother whose three children have already been taken into care and Example B, an A&E nurse who fakes prescriptions to feed his own addiction.
From the outset, these are almost unceasingly grim narratives. However, imbued with sympathy and compassion, Mylan’s script deftly avoids caricatures and cliches, resisting the need to arrive at neat conclusions. It demands greater empathy and understanding of its audience, even as it offers little hope or resolution for its characters. But, as if to decorate the dungeon with flowers, even in the dark there are also gentle lyrical flourishes that raise the text above kitchen-sink drudgery: telly smiles, the choreography of tug boats and cold turkey avicides.
There is some dramatic disparity. Example B’s narrative thread feels shorter and less compelling than that of Example A, and as a two-hander the asymmetrical unfolding of each respective catastrophe feels uneven. This might also be due to the fact that any two-hander with Sophie Melville would shift the dramatic focus. Here, Melville is absolutely extraordinary. Example A feels as if she is in her skin and in every sinew and bone. It is an all-consuming performance, fearless and terrifying.
Superbly staged, Francesca Goodridge’s incisive, focused direction confirms that she is one of Wales’s most exciting theatre directors. Evocatively lit by Cara Hood and on and in Jacob Hughes’s bus stop set, the production displays a stylish theatrical cohesion; captions flash where bus routes are listed, fluorescent tubes are carried, tenderly cradled, rearranged.
This is Swansea-based creative collective Grand Ambition’s inaugural production. Rooted both in the city itself and in Mylan’s own experiences and recovery from addiction, it is an often challenging watch, but also a careful and compassionate portrait, both of a city and of an illness.
From tomorrow until Friday at Swansea Grand theatre
