Hope
Springs, a RSPA Youth Theatre Production, is a gritty
youth drama based on a real juvenile correctional facility spreading the
message that one should never underestimate the power of the young.
Directed by Gill Brunings, the play is
based on a real juvenile correctional facility called “Tranquility Bay”, ran by
an American business and closed down in 2004, after news, regarding the way
children were treated leaked out to the media.
Set on an idyllic island, the story follows
a group of teenagers who were sent to a ‘correctional facility’ as a last
resort for their bad behaviour. Their daily routine slowly unfolds as the play
progresses, revealing a torturous life of discipline and obedience. A life in
which the teachers dictate their every move, from what they do with their time,
to what they eat, to even attempting to control what they think. Their parents
originally sent them to this facility under the impression that it would make
them into respectable citizens.
Events take a drastic turn for the worse
when one of the pupils decides to take matters into their own hands. This sparks
a rebellion reminiscent of Animal Farm.
Two hapless inspectors travel to the island at just the wrong time, and it is
because of these two that the terrible events of the past are revealed.
Message from the author, Richard Conlon, for
the SA premiere production: “Unusually for a playwright, I can be very specific
about when the inspiration for Hope
Springs hit me; Decca Aitkenhead’s article The Last Resort was published in the UK’s Observer Magazine on the
29th May 2003 and by April 2004 the play was premiered. The article shocked and
disturbed me and I stuck closely to the truth of what Decca had discovered
during her stay at a real ‘privately run youth correction facility’. ‘The
programme’ the young people live under is real, ‘observational placement’ is
real, the way young people are taken by surprise and force to a facility is
real, the way parents sign over 49% of their rights to their own children...all
real. My writerly, imaginative input is to ask ‘what would happen if there were
some kind of rebellion or revolution?. Hope Springs is my answer to that
question. The play has now been staged and studied in many English-speaking
countries but curiously not (as far as I know) in the USA which is the home of
the privately run youth correctional facility. The play asks questions about
the use and abuse of power and I hope it doesn’t hide from the fact that the
issue has two sides - as one pupils says: “We aren’t saints are we? There’s
something, something that each and every one of has done which our parents were
worried about, worried sick about – but none of you ever put yourselves in their
place, do you? ... I was argumentative, disrespectful, I was smoking, drinking,
staying out and going to places where it was wiser to keep my distance – and my
parents put a stop to that, because they cared.”I have never written a darker
or more complex play than Hope Springs,
but young casts and their directors have risen to the challenge time after time
– my hope is that a tiny piece of Hope Springs stays with those young people as
they emerge into adulthood. It may, at some point, be of some use to them.”
Hope
Springs runs at Catalina Theatre, Wilsons Wharf,
from July 24 to 28 at 19h00 with matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 14h00. Tickets
R80 pp. Group booking discounts are available. Booking through Computicket, www.computicket.com (search Hope Springs)
or call 086 191 5800
Info: www.rsopa.co.za
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