Review: The Trials at Tron Theatre Glasgow

Dawn King’s 2022 play, The Trials, offers a deeply uncomfortable premise. Set in a suffocating near-future where the climate has finally cracked, it places the generation responsible for the ecological collapse on trial.

Their judges are twelve teenagers who must inherit the scorched earth left behind. It is a provocative setup, and Director Joanna Bowman brings it to the Tron Theatre stage with considerable energy.

Yet, for all its ambition, this production struggles to bridge the experiential gap between its seasoned adult cast and its youth ensemble.

A claustrophobic vision of tomorrow

Jessica Worrall’s set design wastes no time in establishing the stakes. The jury is confined to a stark, clinical room built of white plywood and populated by unforgiving green plastic chairs. It is a brilliant, anxiety-inducing space, made all the more oppressive by Derek Anderson’s harsh lighting and Lewis den Hertog’s piercing sound design.

High above the stage, a cut-out window isolates the adult defendants, forcing them to deliver their pleas through a static microphone. The physical separation is a smart directorial choice, trapping the audience down in the sweltering, smog-choked reality of the young jurors while observing the older generation like specimens in a jar.

It is a brilliant, anxiety-inducing space, made all the more oppressive by Derek Anderson’s harsh lighting and Lewis den Hertog’s piercing sound design.

The heavyweights take the stand

When the adults take their turn in the box, the play finds its sharpest teeth. Brian Ferguson, Maryam Hamidi, and Pauline Goldsmith are tasked with defending lives lived in a world we immediately recognise as our own. Their capital offences include taking flights, eating meat, and treating recycling as an option rather than a mandate. The premise asks us to consider if an individual can be executed for actions that were perfectly legal and socially expected at the time they were committed.

**The Trials production images – Mihaela Bodlovic**

Ferguson pitches Defendant One with a fatal arrogance, entirely misreading the room and assuming a shared understanding that no longer exists. Hamidi brings a desperate, compelling edge to a liberal playwright begging for a scrap of empathy. It is Goldsmith, however, who leaves the deepest mark, portraying an oil executive so wracked with guilt she practically demands the ultimate punishment. These monologues are performed with exceptional nuance, forcing the stalls to confront the quiet horrors of modern convenience.

Adolescent energy meets structural snags

The burden of judgment falls to a jury cast from various Glasgow youth performance groups. They have just fifteen minutes to decide if these adults live or die. Bowman captures the chaotic, kinetic nervousness of adolescence well. Movement director Jack Webb and fight director EmmaClaire Brightlyn ensure this ensemble’s physical interactions are highly believable, whether retreating into shared fantasies of a snow-covered past or descending into uncoordinated, hysterical scuffles.

The burden of judgment falls to a jury cast from various Glasgow youth performance groups. They have just fifteen minutes to decide if these adults live or die. Bowman captures the chaotic, kinetic nervousness of adolescence well.

That said, placing these emerging performers opposite the gravitational pull of Ferguson, Hamidi, and Goldsmith does reveal an imbalance.

Furthermore, King’s script burdens the teenagers with a barrage of eco tropes. The realism so carefully constructed in the opening scenes begins to fray when the dialogue devolves into familiar bickering over militant veganism or sudden romantic overtures amidst the apocalypse. The moral weight of the central dilemma is thus prone to getting lost in the noise of teenage drama.

Ultimately, The Trials is an undeniably necessary piece of theatre. It points a finger directly at the audience, refusing to offer easy answers or take sides in the generational warfare it depicts. While the narrative muddies itself in the final act, and the structural imbalance between the casts is impossible to ignore, Bowman keeps the pace tight and the stakes high. It is a flawed but fiercely compelling production that will doubtlessly provoke arguments long after the curtain falls.

Featured Image: The Trials – Mihaela Bodlovic