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The Straits
Rosia Bay, Gibraltar, 1982. Doink, Jock and Darren have the longest, hottest summer ahead; yomping, watching pirate copies of Rambo and fighting the local lads over a lucrative fleet of octopus that have just hit the Rock. With Darren's fit older sister Tracy to sell the bounty, their dominance of Rosia Bay seems assured. But for the sons and daughters of the British Forces, another war beginning in the South Atlantic will soon bring a dark heart to their world. The Straits - the tale of an extraordinary summer in the lives of four teenagers - was produced by Paines Plough Theatre Company and premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2003.
100 pages, Paperback
First published August 7, 2003
9 people want to read
About the author
Gregory Burke
37 books7 followersGregory Burke (born 1968) is a Scottish playwright from Rosyth, Fife, Scotland.
Gregory Burke's first play was Gagarin Way, set in the factories of West Fife. His play, Black Watch, for the National Theatre of Scotland, debuted at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, meeting with critical acclaim, and has since been performed throughout Scotland and has also toured theatres in London, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. He has also written Occy Eyes, The Straits, Unsecured, On Tour, Liar and Shell shocked. His most recent play was Hoors, which opened at the Traverse Theatre on 1 May 2009.
His play Black Watch won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Play, the South Bank Show Theatre Award in 2007 and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2009.
Gregory Burke's first play was Gagarin Way, set in the factories of West Fife. His play, Black Watch, for the National Theatre of Scotland, debuted at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival, meeting with critical acclaim, and has since been performed throughout Scotland and has also toured theatres in London, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. He has also written Occy Eyes, The Straits, Unsecured, On Tour, Liar and Shell shocked. His most recent play was Hoors, which opened at the Traverse Theatre on 1 May 2009.
His play Black Watch won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Play, the South Bank Show Theatre Award in 2007 and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 25, 2022
3.5, rounded up.
Burke's second produced play continues to explore his theme of the violence inherent in machoistic masculinity and nationalist politics, in this examination of such on Gibraltar in the pivotal year of 1982, during the beginnings of the Falklands War. It's definitely a well-constructed and thoughtful play, albeit largely absent Burke's usual wit. My qualms concern whether it's not already hopelessly dated, and the demands made on sets and staging (including the use of actual spearguns and the onstage gutting of an octopus!) It is also somewhat problematic that Burke often resorts to over-the-top violence, given his own history with such (see fifth link below).
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/200...
https://variety.com/2003/legit/review...#!
https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainm...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/sc...
Burke's second produced play continues to explore his theme of the violence inherent in machoistic masculinity and nationalist politics, in this examination of such on Gibraltar in the pivotal year of 1982, during the beginnings of the Falklands War. It's definitely a well-constructed and thoughtful play, albeit largely absent Burke's usual wit. My qualms concern whether it's not already hopelessly dated, and the demands made on sets and staging (including the use of actual spearguns and the onstage gutting of an octopus!) It is also somewhat problematic that Burke often resorts to over-the-top violence, given his own history with such (see fifth link below).
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/200...
https://variety.com/2003/legit/review...#!
https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainm...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/sc...
November 11, 2022
The Straits, only the second play by British author Gregory Burke, is fine, insightful and pertinent. It takes place in May, 1982, on Gibraltar, the tiny bit of rock at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea that remains a British outpost for reasons that don't seem to make a great deal of sense anymore; here four British teens--three boys and one girl--are stuck, their parents having been assigned to this archaic remnant of the Empire, and are trying to figure out how to grow up and become whoever it is they are going to be.
May 1982 was the month that Great Britain attacked Argentine forces that had attempted to take over the Falkland Islands (and by June, this little snippet of a war was over, the British victorious). The four characters in The Straits feel the effects of this war more keenly than most, for the native Gibraltarians are Spanish; the two older boys in particular are disposed to the notion that these local "Spics" (for that's what they call them) are suitable stand-ins for the ones battling their brethren overseas. That word brethren is literally true for one of the boys, by the way: the one nicknamed Doink, who dreams of the day he can join the Marines. His brother is in the thick of things, in the Navy, stationed on the HMS Sheffield in the South Atlantic.
This is the background of The Straits; the main plot concerns Darren, 15, who has just arrived on Gibraltar with his parents and older sister, Tracy. Darren is smarter and more sensitive than Doink, but as new kid on the block he discovers that he has a lot to prove. The Straits follows Darren's clashes with the rougher and tougher Doink, and on one level it proceeds just the way you think it will. But what gives this drama its remarkable power is that you keep hoping it won't. The third boy, Jock, is the wild card, more mature than Doink but even more unsettled inside, if that's possible; like most people in the universe, his sins are more of omission than commission, which makes him our guide into the world of the play and its conscience.
There are no adults in the play, but The Straits is entirely about what they--we--have taught these four young people about life. Darren gets his ideas about being grown-up by watching a pirated Rambo tape. Doink sums things rather succinctly and chillingly, thus:
May 1982 was the month that Great Britain attacked Argentine forces that had attempted to take over the Falkland Islands (and by June, this little snippet of a war was over, the British victorious). The four characters in The Straits feel the effects of this war more keenly than most, for the native Gibraltarians are Spanish; the two older boys in particular are disposed to the notion that these local "Spics" (for that's what they call them) are suitable stand-ins for the ones battling their brethren overseas. That word brethren is literally true for one of the boys, by the way: the one nicknamed Doink, who dreams of the day he can join the Marines. His brother is in the thick of things, in the Navy, stationed on the HMS Sheffield in the South Atlantic.
This is the background of The Straits; the main plot concerns Darren, 15, who has just arrived on Gibraltar with his parents and older sister, Tracy. Darren is smarter and more sensitive than Doink, but as new kid on the block he discovers that he has a lot to prove. The Straits follows Darren's clashes with the rougher and tougher Doink, and on one level it proceeds just the way you think it will. But what gives this drama its remarkable power is that you keep hoping it won't. The third boy, Jock, is the wild card, more mature than Doink but even more unsettled inside, if that's possible; like most people in the universe, his sins are more of omission than commission, which makes him our guide into the world of the play and its conscience.
There are no adults in the play, but The Straits is entirely about what they--we--have taught these four young people about life. Darren gets his ideas about being grown-up by watching a pirated Rambo tape. Doink sums things rather succinctly and chillingly, thus:
It goes all the way back, don't it? England an fightin an that. War's what we do innit. What we do best. Don't matter who we fight either. Spics or Germans or French or whatever. Reckon we'll always be at war with someone and we always win.
July 27, 2008
Three British youths on Gibraltor fish for octopi on the eve of the Falklands War. The newest to the gang desperately wants to fit in and falls in with the military mind-set of his new friends. His sister, saddled with a reputation she may or may not have earned, tries to look out for him as the three boys get caught up in the fever of war.
The play makes a point about the military culture and how it works on the minds of the young men brought up in and around military bases around the world. The subject matter interests me greatly, but the way in which it's dealt with didn't really catch my fancy. It was too "guy-centric," too boys-to-men testosterone-driven. Of course, that was partly the point. Still not my cup of tea.
The play makes a point about the military culture and how it works on the minds of the young men brought up in and around military bases around the world. The subject matter interests me greatly, but the way in which it's dealt with didn't really catch my fancy. It was too "guy-centric," too boys-to-men testosterone-driven. Of course, that was partly the point. Still not my cup of tea.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews