'Esse SA Essay' by Callum Walker
Nottingham New Theatre.

One thing that you can’t say about New Theatre student Callum Walker is that he shies away from a tough topic. Last March his play “The Black Dog On My Sofa” was presented; a play about depression.

This play is about the sensitive subject of the psychological effects of male rape. Skipper, the main character was raped by an older woman when he was sixteen. He deals with this trauma by suppressing the memories of the event and he locks them away in a box in his mind.

He also keeps a box under his bed which is sealed, which we are not privy to the contents, which could be a physical image of the box that he keeps those memories locked away in.

Years later he begins to go back over it all, painful as it is, he needs to come to terms with what happened to him, piece by piece. But is there still a piece missing from the jigsaw of that night?

The piece looks at, not only what happened to Skipper, but from the start, how men are viewed from his circle of friends, the stereotypical male, and how Skipper sees himself from inside himself and how the memory can be utilised by the owner.

Written and Directed by Callum Walker, normally the best work is written from experience, I'm hoping this isn't the case, but Callum has presented, not only a quite shocking piece of theatre but even manages to raise a laugh, albeit at times a nervous one, which is needed to break the seriousness of the work. I can see that a lot of research has been done through the writing as well as the emotional and, at times, harrowing production and presentation.

Produced by Sophie Curtis, this I also imagine was not an easy piece to be involved with.

With a cast of one, and this being his NNT debut, Jake Aaron Levy, does not have an easy task fro several reasons. First he has the responsibility to deliver on his shoulders alone. He delivered the emotional and at times pacy script with great conviction and feeling. there's no one to fall back on or bounce off when you are the only cast member, so he had to make sure that he knew this 100%, and he did.

There is full frontal nudity in the play, which is relevant to the script and for understanding what Skipper is going through. No matter how confident any actor is, when they have to perform naked, and in such an intimate performance area, that will always be another thing the actor has to mentally and of course physically, roster into his performance. It takes guts even for an experienced actor, and let's remember, this is Jake's NNT debut.

I loved the Sound Design (Tara Prasad) for several reasons. From the ticking of the clock, as timelines were part of the play, to the tracking of the journey taken by Skipper on the night his assault happened, painting an aural picture in your mind.

Going hand in hand with the sound in any production is of course the Lighting Design (Laura Wolczyk) with the sharp sound to light effect of the timeline of events as Skipper recalled them over and over, each time getting faster and the lights heightening the audience's senses.

Like "Black Dog", which I also enjoyed for the darkness, and for being an issue that men shy away from discussing for fear of seeming "less masculine" and something that doesn't happen to men, I applaud Callum for highlighting this and Jake for delivering and performing the script as sensitively as he did.

A play that should be seen by as many people as possible in my humble opinion.

And for anyone who, like me at the start, was trying to work out exactly what the title meant, that too is revealed within the play, so you won't be leaving confused, but you will leave with several talking points in your head.

"Esse Sa Essay" is at the Nottingham New Theatre until Tuesday 27 November 2018.