Making Connections

I'm not exactly sure when I got hold of my copy of Connections 2014: New Plays for Young People - I think it was in late 2017 - but I'm glad I did. It took me the best part of a year to read all the ten plays featured, but I found something enjoyable in every one, and some have really lingered in my mind. I'd pick out Matt Hartley's Heritage, Sam Holcroft's Wardrobe, Sabrina Mahfouz's A Shop Selling Speech and Pronoun by Evan Pacey as the ones that made the greatest impact, possibly because they were the easiest to visualise working on a stage. The volume also provides genuinely interesting, often valuable, follow-up material on each play, with director's notes and the like. Great value.

Since all the plays really do deal with the concerns of youngsters around their late teens, I found reading the plays an educational experience for myself in terms of learning about those concerns. I think I shared some as a kid, but there were issues dealt with that I've never given that much attention to, from a position, I suppose, of comfortable adult complacency.

I think that most of all I was struck by the verve of the dialogue in so many of the pieces. Quite a number of unhappy characters featured and they had vivid ways of letting you know how unhappy they felt. I don't remember feeling quite so much angst back in the days, but I didn't doubt the authenticity of the feelings so expressively on display.