The Fifth Step starring Sean Gilder as James, and Jack Lowden as Luka, tells the story of an addicted young working class man.
It’s a boon to hear Lowden on stage speaking in his own accent, which sounds like an authentic and strong Edinburgh brogue. He stalks the stage brimming with kinetic energy and is full of anger at himself and others but at the same time Lowdon displays a lost and sensitive soul trying to find his place in the world.
Luka becomes to close to his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, a father figure who at first appears like a together, middle-class Guardian reading type male. Beneath the mask lurks a controlling, bigoted, hateful and toxic man out to control his family and his sponsors in any way he can. When Luka begins to flourish finding Christianity and a relationship, James becomes full of judgement, resentment and distain.
There is a refusal to see that a shift has taken place, mentally, physically and spiritually as a bleak and begrudging attitude sets in that turns the atmosphere in the theatre pitch black. It’s here that David Ireland’s writing shifts gear, as an energised Luka defeats James with a new awareness and sense of self. Ireland taps into some of the deepest prejudices and bigotries that exist in our society.
At present the National Theatre of Scotland is allowing vital stories to be told that wouldn’t see the light of day in London. The challenge now is that we begin to produce more theatre, cinema and art of this quality while at the same allowing more unseen lives to be seen away from what David Bowie called “the tyranny of the mainstream”.
