Chapter, Cardiff
Ian Rowlands's new play, set on trains and buses across a "small country", certainly captures the feel of a long journey on public transport. There's anticipation, frustration, humour, time to reflect, a glimpse into the lives of others, but also waves of ennui. There is also the guarantee of people being annoying on their phones – which features in one of the play's funniest moments. The main character, Man (Ifan Huw Dafydd), grabs a phone from Young Man (Joshua McCord) yakking next to him and yells into it: "We're all listening to this shit!"
It's one of several well-observed scenes articulating universal feelings, ranging from trivial to dauntingly serious, as the characters survey the big junctions of life. Fear, death, loneliness, regret, ageing and national identity are the real stopping-off points here, rather than the cheeky invented names for Welsh places explained in the glossary: Bluerinse Bay for Colwyn Bay, Dullage for Bridgend.
But the travellers carry too much baggage. Rowlands overloads his text with symbolic layers – most obviously, the journey representing life – at the same time as revelling in the babble of people's thoughts as they fill the carriages, colliding with each other.
Between these experimental elements, which give the play its uneven, alienating corners, there are naturalistic scenes drawn from Man's memory. These pulse with a life and feeling that's lacking elsewhere. Rowlands writes searingly, for example, about Man's fear of turning into his frail, ageing father ("the smell of his piss on my skin for days") and it's a pity there's not more of this layer. These stops are where you want to disembark and explore the landscape.