[THEATRE REVIEW] LYCEUM HIGHWAY & METROPOLIS MONOLOGUES @ Meat Market Stables Review (2025)
Can we escape a tortured past? That question is at the heart of the new drama Lyceum Highway, written by KV Adams and debuting at Meat Market Stables.
The story starts with Maggie (Laura Iris Hill) wrapping herself in a brightly coloured crocheted blanket, admitting that she needs help. A blackness is overwhelming and consuming her.
Then we cut to Godfrey (Kevin Dee), frustrated and disappointed that he has been overlooked for a job for which he firmly believes he was the best candidate.
Next, we see him hitching a lift with Maggie on a remote and barren desert highway.
He is personable and talkative (he says silence bores him). She is short-tempered and shut off. In fact, she even inserts a piece of garden lattice between them.
Within minutes, Maggie has thrown Godfrey out of the car, only to relent.
Thereafter, we gradually learn some things about her.
She is an unemployed social worker, estranged from her son and screwed over by her former lover. Her mother died not all that long ago.
Little is known about Godfrey, other than the fact that he seems strangely familiar to Maggie.
She literally and metaphorically appears to be trying to escape her past, driving back and forth along the Lyceum Highway.
The distance between them thaws. She drinks whisky and he smokes joints.
Godfrey offers her counsel and is most concerned about a dark presence – a big black cloud – that seems to be following her, to which she is initially oblivious.
In time, their respective truths will out and Maggie recognises again that she needs help.
While I can appreciate the deliberate secrecy that surrounds the storyline, I found the build-up frustrating.
It took too long to get to “the good bits”, namely the revelations.
There was too much treading water, too many arguments and dancing at shadows. Not enough happens along the way.
So it is that at 70 minutes, Lyceum Highway feels unnecessarily stretched. A taut 45 minutes would have done me and kept me interested, rather than tuning out from time to time.
That is not a criticism of the acting, which is solid. Laura Iris Hill plays Maggie as a bundle of pent-up energy, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.
Kevin Dee is chill and evasive as Godfrey.
Both characters are hiding secrets.
Striking video footage accompanies the couple’s journey. My only concern with it was its circuitous nature. It was far too repetitive. Time and again, we came to the same large rocky outcrop and the fork in the road.
Sound effects were most effective.
In summary then, while there is strength in elements of the script, the narrative loses impact because it takes its sweet time getting to where it needs to go.
Directed by Brooke Fairley, it is playing at Meat Market Stables until 18th March, 2025 as part of a double bill with Metropolis Monologues.
In the latter, five performers deliver solo endeavours, each for between seven and 10 minutes.
The subject matter is mixed, but originality is the key and the material is universally evocative.
Topics include anger management in Patchwork by Ros Varley, featuring Marc Opitz.
There is the compulsory acquisition of farmland that has been in the same family for generations – Tony Adams in The Drowning by Fiona Corke.
A woman with child is elevated to the Spanish throne at an early age in Juana, Queen of Spain by Barbara Yazbeck, performed by Sarah Hamilton.
A husband who is a cat person continues to mourn his wife’s passing, when he befriends a dog that will have a say in his future. Tony Adams returns in Buddy by Michael Olsen.
Finally, a cat, played by Melanie Hillman, doesn’t countenance sharing her master with others. Cissy is written by Karyn Lee Greig. All stand-alone stories resonated.
Review by Alex First Photography by Anna Moloney-Heath