At a music festival, three teenagers strike up a friendship and gradually reveal their histories of self-harm. As the festival takes place just after taking their GCSEs, Nina Lemon's new play Hidden may feel disconnected from these COVID times, but this lively and touching script is packed full of relevant messages, delivered without preaching and with pace.
What makes this play work so well is the dovetailing of stories, so that we are always kept on tenterhooks. Bit by bit, we find out just why Matt (consumed by exam anxiety), Tash (haunted by a traumatic childhood) and Sophia (struggling with poor body image) sink into self-harm; and the answer is never obvious. As Tash points out, ‘not everyone who self-harms has a screwed up abusive childhood.’
The three teenagers share their stories by acting them out; the characters in this ensemble cast ‘appear, emerge, transform’. This useful storytelling technique lends itself to comedy: when one actor acts a ‘horsey girl’ by riding about on an imaginary horse, he is wryly informed that he looks ridiculous: ‘We are almost fourteen, not seven.’
Hidden's storytelling is often meta-dramatic: ‘I didn't want to show you that,’ says Matt when the others enact a scene from his past. Such theatricality helps to underline the complexities of the issues involved. Not everything is as it seems: therapists are not always ‘some old guy with a beard and a white coat’ and sometimes the person you need to talk to is ‘not the obvious choice’ (in Sophia's case, her physics teacher, and she's not even good at physics!)
Lemon skilfully manipulates audience expectations, particularly at the climax when, just as Matt decides that he can change, his friend Yas appears to become the latest self-harm statistic. There are many messages in this ensemble piece, but the play never sinks under the weight of them; they are expertly revealed.
‘Not everything stays the same,’ says Yas. ‘Some things change.’ It is a useful message to young people who may think that once caught in a self-abusive pattern there is no escape. Or, as Tash's psychiatrist asks, ‘So where do you want to break the cycle?’
Hidden helps teenagers explore issues of self-worth, mental health, and self-harm; Lemon's ultimate aim is to debunk some of the more pernicious myths surrounding self-harm and, ultimately, empower young people.