Sab!
at Calton Centre (Venue 188), Edinburgh

Ravi Bali

Sab depicts a day in the life of four hunt saboteurs as they set out to disrupt the first hunt of the season.

It is the first play by Ruth Urqhart, co-founder of the New Strides Theatre Company. It has an interesting aim of presenting the need for political engagement and the power of argument to change the views of people who don't agree, a very positive germ of an idea when posed in this abstract fashion. Unfortunately, the play itself is a dreadful shambles that is so slipshod in its execution that it is an annoyance to watch.

It has the conceit of actors mid-scene apologising for the play's low budget as a way of giving the audience a sense of where we are - this is the laziest way of avoiding the work of writing dialogue that can convey dramatic movement. The sight of actors contriving to argue about who should play newly introduced characters is a disgraceful insult to our intelligence. The characterisation is next to non-existent - the only individual who displays any moral ambivalence is the liberal hunt-rider who continues to hunt because of her love of horses and the pressure of peers, and yet even for her there is no character development by the time the play ends. A political rant would have been preferable to something that fails so horribly on all dramatic fronts.