CityLife

Care Takers

WRITTEN and directed by Levenshulme-based Billy Cowan, whose Smilin’ Through was nominated for a Best New Play M.E.N. Theatre Award,  Care Takers provides an insightful, provocative and plausible look at a thorny, but relevant, topic.  

At a reasonably-performing but cash-strapped Catholic school, a passionate and idealistic new teacher Ms. Lawson (Annamarie Bayley) comes to the Deputy Head Mrs. Rutter (Penny McDonald) with a problem. She’s sure one of the young boys in her class is being bullied and feels that it’s motivated by homophobia. But she has no hard evidence to support her case.

Mrs. Rutter is reluctant to pursue the matter, not only because she’s concerned about her own candidature for the Head Teacher position and distracted by the school’s constant financial woes, but because she feels that Ms. Lawson lacks perspective on the issue, partly through inexperience but also because of her own sexuality, despite, again, any hard evidence.

At a series of meetings between the two women, both the situation in the classroom and the tension between the two women escalates.

 But the skill of Cowan’s script and the excellent, cut-and-thrust performances of the two actresses lies in the way in which the two sides of the argument are balanced. Just as in real life, everyone has their reasons for what they do and youthful idealist and world-weary pragmatist alike can be just as caught up in a fatally-flawed system where, as the play observes, “those who care aren’t the ones who stay.

” Until May 16.

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