Stepping as much as bat on this present of two very totally different innings are the enduring legacies of vitriolic nationalism and the violence of colonialism. However for essentially the most half, on this story of sport and superiority, we’re simply watching individuals muck about and gossip. Kate Attwell’s journey by way of cricket wittily interrogates wilful ignorance within the face of corruption and brutality. With the added delight of interval ballgames.
The gamers are soggy as they run on to the stage, searching for shelter from the rain that stops play on the Girls’s Cricket World Cup match between England and India. Ego runs wild within the break room as they wait out the climate, endurance flailing and tensions rising. There’s a muscular magnificence to Diane Web page’s path because the group of six prowl and goad one another on Cat Fuller’s cracked round stage. The England workforce are hot-headed, the India workforce a lot cooler, the opponents’ warring issues of historical past and world politics entangled with their complaints concerning the rain and the movie star athletes they’re courting.
Tanya Katyal is riveting because the eternally constructive participant for India, as is Bea Svistunenko because the inflexible England captain tempted in direction of foul play. All through, Attwell’s taut writing coils their feelings tightly, pinpointing their pressing, full-bodied have to win.
That pressure releases within the second act as we lose a pair hundred years and the motion leans into flaming satire. As famine rages exterior, our now bewigged, blathering males of the East India Firm write down the foundations of cricket, as a result of God forbid anybody else ought to declare credit score. “What individuals?” they ask pointedly, when the query is raised of the ravenous residents past their gate, returning to the extra urgent matter of the overarm bowl. Via these overinflated males, we see threads of the modern-day feminine gamers: the misplaced English authority, the informal racism, the selfishness that permits people to see guidelines as being for different individuals.
Unravelling barely at its finish, the ultimate scenes may benefit from a revival of the rigour of the primary act, because the overheated humour sometimes appears like we’ve slipped into an episode of W1A. However Attwell’s message is evident: all through historical past, the English have not often performed honest. Via the lens of the gentleman’s sport, Testmatch is a brilliant, messy, offended reckoning with historical past and the thought of fine sportsmanship.
