The eminent playwright Sir David Hare has written a celebrated trilogy about three British institutions: church (Racing Demon), law (Murmuring Judges), and elective government (The Absence of War). Now comes along the 26-year-old Fin Kennedy to explore a fourth: social services. The result is Protection, which he wrote as the final project for his M.A. degree in playwriting at Goldsmiths College in London, leading to a grant as writer-in-residence at the Soho Theatre.
Kennedy's interest in the subject stems from the fact that both his parents are social workers, which led him to conduct interviews with a host of other professionals in the field.
His play is intentionally depressing. In it we meet the Family Support team of social workers in an inner-city office: Dawn, the by-the-book team manager, who is estranged from her own daughter; the thirtyish Damien, who has never outgrown his boyhood; Shirley, a black woman about to retire after 28 years; Grace, a 24-year-old trainee; and Angela, who prefers to bend the rules and also is having an affair with Gordon, the team's boss, who is more concerned with his budget than with the juvenile delinquents. Some of them can handle the stress and some can't. But they all care about helping their teenage clients, of whom we see Janine, who takes up prostitution, and Adam, who destroys his own art work and kills his pet guinea pig and cat. Both return their workers' ministrations with hostility. The government is cutting back on the already inadequate funding, lowering the age eligibility and just urging workers to report "case closed."
Kennedy makes a strong plea, though he has really tried to cram too much into an hour and a half. The Soho's artistic director, Abigail Morris, has elicited admirable work from her entire cast.
