"All action takes place in a park. The park is any inner city park in northern England where there is a strong Pakistani Kashmiri community..."
I'll admit straight up, I really have no background knowledge going into this. There are a lot of words and phrases used in the characters' native language - some of them are translated in the text, but not all. Their situations, talking about living in a secret refuge, selling drugs and stolen trainers and self-harm which is shown to the audience but never dealt with in discussion between the characters, even when one sees it happen. That last point in particular threw me, it's not entierly clear why they put it in if it's never really linked in. As a snapshot of a life I have no real context for, it's interesting. Ultimately though, I feel like in my mind I simplify the story down to "these are people with issues like being gay, poverty, estranged families, religion, self-harm and pregnancy... and nothing really gets addressed or dealt with in the course of the play". Granted some of the problems presented are probably specific to the community it's meant to portray, and maybe once again I've missed a critical point. Pointing out a group of people and saying "look, they have the same problems as everyone else" is great, but I would have liked to see a bit more of a story, maybe see how those particular characters actually resolve those problems. I know this is an issue I keep coming back to - I miss the point of "snapshot" style plays, particularly in reading them. Maybe if I read enough of them, I'll eventually get it.
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