Boys on the Verge of Tears

Sam Grabiner's debut play Boys on the Verge of Tears won the prestigious Verity Bargate Award for new writing in 2022. The award, presented by Soho Theatre, not only acknowledges outstanding new writing talent but also provides a full production run at the Soho Theatre in London. The play premiered in April 2024, directed by James Macdonald.

Set entirely within the confines of a male public toilet, the piece is divided into three movements that trace the trials and tribulations of contemporary masculinity. The five actors in the production portray nearly 40 characters in total, taking the audience through a spectrum of male experiences from childhood to old age. The toilet serves as a metaphorical space for the characters to confront their deepest insecurities and emotional struggles, symbolising both a literal and figurative place where masculinity is ‘relieved’ and ‘contained’. The play opens with a father desperately trying to toilet-train his unseen young son, setting the stage for what unfolds as a reflection on male development. The act of learning to use the toilet unaided is presented as a fundamental rite of passage for boys, marking the beginning of their struggle with the expectations society places on them. In the first movement, ‘Yesterday’, we follow the journey of boys as they transition from childhood to adolescence. The toilets primarily represent the boys’ toilets in a school, a space fraught with the pressures of puberty, peer interaction, and the performative aspects of masculinity. We see boys struggling with their fragility, increasingly expressing it through aggression and violence. This section explores how boys begin to repress their emotions and adopt the posturing of toughness to navigate their way through school life.