RIFT
★★★★☆ Immediate
Traverse (Venue 15): Thu 31 Jul – Sun 24 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
RIFT from American company Luna Stage – and making its UK debut at the Traverse – is a harsh slice of life, performed notably well.
Produced for this Traverse run with Luna Stage and Richard Jordan Productions, Gabriel Jason Dean’s play is based on his own experiences and deals with the relationship between two brothers.
Blake Stadnik (Outside Brother) and Matt Monaco (Inside Brother) in RIFT. Pic: Valerie Terranova.
‘Inside Brother’ (Matt Monaco) is serving a life sentence for murder, and soon joins a white supremacist gang for protection. ‘Outside Brother’ (Blake Stadnik) is at first a student, later a novelist and academic. He struggles with his brother’s incarceration and political decisions, and with events in the past that have affected them both.
There is an uncompromising feel to Dean’s writing, allied to an unexpected humour that gives the play a compelling quality. There are no easy answers or pat judgements. Similarly the parallels between the brothers’ relationship and the fractures in American society are cleverly drawn.
uneasy rapport
The two performances, moreover, are first rate. Monaco is horribly magnetic as the hugely damaged Inside Brother, with a raw physicality and immense presence.
Stadnik’s Outside Brother is no less damaged, but internalises his pain rather than taking it out on others. This is another very fine performance, skilfully laying the character’s dilemmas bare. There is also an uneasy rapport between the two of them that suggests their shared history, as they struggle to make a connection despite the cycle of abuse that affects them.
Blake Stadnik (Outside Brother) and Matt Monaco (Inside Brother) in RIFT. Pic: Valerie Terranova.
Ari Laura Kreith’s direction is varied and clever; perhaps too much so at times. Striving to eliminate the staginess that often bedevils two-handers, it tends to go the other way, with some unnecessary moving around. This becomes distracting, especially considering that much of the narrative is constructed around prison visits or Zoom calls.
Justin Townsend’s lighting and David Lanza’s sound, meanwhile, suffer a little from a related tendency to underline and over-dramatise what is already a vital enough narrative, but work well on their own terms.
unnecessarily fussy
The play does threaten to outstay its welcome, with the various scenes becoming a shade formulaic, particularly in the way the passage of time is shown. Once again, Lauren Nychelle’s projections telling us how many years have passed are unnecessarily fussy when the dialogue makes constant reference to how long it has been since the last scene.
Towards the end the narrative also gets a little bogged down in questions of creative writing, authorship and how the brothers’ story should be dramatised.
However, none of these quibbles detract too much from a production whose immediacy and brutality are clear for all to see.
Running time: One hour and 30 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre (Traverse 2), 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED. (Venue 15).
Thursday 31 July – Sunday 24 August 2025
Daily (not Mons 11, 18): various times. See website for details.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Traverse website: Further details.
Luna Stage website.
Blake Stadnik (Outside Brother) and Matt Monaco (Inside Brother) in RIFT. Pic: Valerie Terranova.
ENDS
