Costco, Coastlines and Coming-of-Age: Clarkston at the Trafalgar

Clarkston | Trafalgar Theatre until 22 November
A sincere coming-of-age drama with strong performances from Joe Locke and Ruaridh Mollica
Heartstopper’s Joe Locke leads this premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s play, which follows his character Jake, a naive liberal arts graduate who dreams of following the pioneer William Clark’s trail into the American West. His journey ends in a small town called Clarkston, complete with a Costco on Main Street, ironically where Lewis and Clark finished their trail. It is in that drab Costco we meet Chris, played by Ruaridh Mollica, and Chris’s troubled mother, Trisha (Sophie Melville).
The play wears its themes on its sleeve, drugs, despair and the search for meaning, but this straightforward style allows the two young men’s friendship to shine. However, there’s a sweet sincerity to the show as these three troubled characters try to navigate their relationships and find some meaning.
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Clarkston is by the American playwright Samuel D. Hunter, best known for The Whale, and was first staged in 2018. The staging is deceptively simple; almost the entire action takes place in a fluorescent-lit Costco warehouse, with carts of cardboard boxes piling up as the characters work the night shift.
Some audience members sit on the stage, which I felt was mainly a way to cram in more seats. There was one teenage boy who clearly had come to see Locke but looked extremely bored – a bit distracting at first. But you quickly forget that and focus on the actors.
It has a naturalistic setting and acting style, but the lighting does shift stylistically and effectively creates an abstract backdrop for their performances. It is most effective in the final moments of the play when they both finally get to see the sea.
This small cast is superb. Joe Locke’s Jake is convincingly upbeat and earnest, even as we learn his big medical secret: he has Huntington’s, which hangs over everything. Locke handles both the humour and the pathos really well. It will be interesting to see if the recent medical advances, which mean that it is no longer a death sentence, will change audiences’ reaction to his character.

However, I was more impressed with Ruaridh Mollica as Chris, the night-shift worker. Chris is a young gay man in an intolerant community, struggling to find himself. Mollica is superb and makes him completely believable: from a fumbling attempt at a one-night stand to the shy, soft smile as he bonds with Jake. It may be that the writing is better for this character, but it is still an extremely effective, nuanced and believable performance.
And Sophie Melville, as Chris’s mum Trisha, is equally fantastic: raw, real and utterly watchable. She has this haunted look and an unpredictable edge, is she clean or using again? The tension in those mother-son scenes is absolutely palpable.
It has a 90-minute running time with no interval and it zipped along, but whilst not every play needs a message (as American playwright George S. Kaufman observed, ‘messages are for Western Union’), by the end, when they arrive at the coast, I was struggling to understand what the point of the play was.

The play itself feels incomplete, and I think it is best approached as a character study rather than a piece of drama. Ultimately, I would give it three stars as a play, but the quality of the acting elevates it to a four.
Joe Locke makes his West End debut in this intimate drama, an oddball Costco love story that’s superbly acted but frustratingly feels unfinished.
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Clarkston
Trafalgar Theatre | Booking until 22nd November
A sincere coming-of-age drama set in small-town America, with standout performances from Joe Locke and Ruaridh Mollica.
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Visit Trafalgar Theatre for ticket details and show information
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