The Trials review

Set in an all-but-inevitable future in which climate change has forced a radical reorganisation of civilisation, The Trials vividly imagines a bleak world where child jurors decide the fates of adults whose lifestyles contributed to climate breakdown.

Playwright Dawn King has form when it comes to gripping dystopian drama. Her searing 2011 play Foxfinder was similarly underpinned by themes of environmental upheaval. Here, there’s less allegory, more judicial debate. And while the legal system the play imagines is just about the cruellest and most subjective imaginable, King uses the creaky set-up to great effect.

Though the dialogue’s sometimes bogged down in didacticism, King pushes beyond simplistic questions of right and wrong. The kids tasked with assigning culpability are openly traumatised by the overlapping crises they’ve experienced. They’ve all lost family, some to man-made disasters and some to vengeful survivors and, however well-intentioned, the new world they’re building has to somehow accommodate all their anger, nihilism and fragile hope.

In a neatly conceived framing device, each of the play’s passages begins with an adult defendant giving their testimony. These tight monologues provide contentious talking points and insights into the day-to-day pressures that make it so difficult for individuals to take meaningful action to protect our ecosystem.

Director Natalie Abrahami surrounds the defendants with hostile jurors, physically crowding them, while projected videos, designed by Nina Dunn, capture their expressions in extreme close-up. Their testimonies complete, the defendants remain in the space, silent but reacting eloquently as the jurors weigh the evidence. 

Disowned by her family and resigned to her trial’s inevitable verdict, Sharon Small’s performance as a repentant oil-company executive is quietly gutting. Looking back on her actions with clarity, she conveys all the horror of someone realising their life’s work has destroyed everything they valued.

Playing an articulate author, Lucy Cohu rails believably at her own powerlessness in the face of capitalism’s seemingly unstoppable momentum, blustering persuasively about the ways she tried to do her best to live a more ecologically responsible life. Her heart visibly sinks as she hears her own words – to her, as to her judges, it all sounds like too little too late.

The jurors, meanwhile, are played with great commitment and focus by a young cast, many making their professional debuts as part of the Donmar Local programme, which encourages community engagement around Camden and Westminster. 

The show features an interestingly textured sound design by composer Xana, driven by subtle but ever-present electronic drones. Between scenes, the music bursts into thumping electronic beats while teenage ravers throw themselves into primal dances, channelling all the energy and desperation of a generation who’ll grow up in a profoundly changing world.