Theatre review: Admissions

Trafalgar Studios is just down the road from The Motherfucker Of Parliaments but while its main house show is highly topical, it’s a current American scandal it links into – that of Ivy League Universities, and the lengths people will go to to get their kids into the best ones, regardless of whether they deserve a place. Although Joshua Harmon’s Admissions looks at a different angle of the story than the outright bribery and cheating that’s been in the news, it could still have coasted on topicality to become a hit – if only it was any good. Sherri (FD Alex Kingston) is the admissions officer, and her husband Bill (Andrew Woodall) the headmaster, at an exclusive private boarding school. The measure of Sherri’s success seems to largely be in how much diversity she can bring to the student body, and in her decade or so in the job she’s managed to get the non-white student populace from negligible to nearly 20%.

She genuinely feels strongly about making more opportunities for minority students and reflecting the country’s actual racial makeup, until it affects her family personally.

As the son of two staff members, Charlie (Ben Edelman) has had an automatic place in the school, but when it comes to college applications he’s just like anyone else, and Yale has “deferred” him (which as far as I could tell isn’t even a rejection, more like being waitlisted.) His mixed-race best friend Perry was accepted, which sets Charlie off on an outright racist rant about how he’s been overlooked because of positive discrimination. Bill is incensed but Sherri can’t shake the idea that her son’s been denied a place he was entitled to, and it puts a strain on her relationship with her friend, Perry’s mother (Sarah Hadland.)

There’s nothing wrong with the basic premise of Admissions, to satirize white liberals whose values are sacrosanct up until the point when it actually affects them, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The play is largely made up of big ranty monologues, and the plot turns on Charlie making a couple of huge, self-destructive stands that only just about make sense as the actions of a moody, attention-seeking teenager. The cast make the most of unlikeable characters (although Edelman is imported from the New York production, and his performance is very much What New York Likes.) But while I don't expect Kingston to play River Song in every role, it seems a shame to have an actress of such warmth and cheekiness back on the London stage after a long while in a role that plays against these strengths. And for a play that’s ostensibly a comedy, very few gags actually land in Daniel Aukin’s fairly monotonous production (although those that do include some great lines.) The most reliably comic scenes see Sherri confront Roberta (Margot Leicester,) the woman editing the school’s new brochure, with her highly specific demands of the racial balance she’s trying to project in the photos.

Harmon’s Bad Jews made a success of approaching a sensitive subject like a bull in a china shop, but Admissions doesn’t manage to replicate the formula; it’s one of those evenings that occasionally blaze into life but keep sinking back into lengthy speeches that I was impatient to see the back of. The biggest irony in a play about representation is that there isn’t a single role for a non-white actor: Two mixed-race characters are regularly mentioned but are kept offstage. I’d almost wonder if it was deliberate, if anything else about the play suggested that level of subtlety.

Admissions by Joshua Harmon is booking until the 25th of May at Trafalgar Studio 1; then continuing on tour to Richmond, Cambridge, Malvern and Salford.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.