By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

WHEN?: Wednesday 27 March 2024, runs through 12 May 2024 RUNTIME: 105 minutes (no interval)

The artwork (main picture) transforming the titular white sail with 2 eye holes into an image to strike fear into hearts isn’t the only subtlety in this play about an American university lecturer and boating enthusiast who invites a white nationalist to speak there.

• Read on for reasons including how Power Of Sail is unafraid to question the motives of those on both left and right

Julian Ovenden (The Treatment, Almeida and pictured left below) is lecturer Charles Nichols whose students are protesting outside his office after the speaker list of his planned symposium is leaked and he is forced to justify more speech as the answer to platforming hate speech.

Nichols’ former prodigy Baxter Forrest, played by Giles Terera (Olivier Award winner for Hamilton, nominated again this year for Clyde’s at the Donmar and pictured right below), urges him to reconsider his decision and wonders why he’s so hell-bent on this course.

Student Lucas Poole, a quite chilling Michael Benz, agrees to accompany Nichols to meet the nationalist desperately seeking legitimacy for his right wing views and sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences.

Power Of Sail by Paul Grellong has a rewarding circular form which means its 6 scenes stretch forward and then back allowing us to watch past events with the knowledge of what they will lead to, a gift not afforded to those taking part.

Particularly strong is the conversation in flashback in which Benz’s student with hidden views sailing under the line of sight of his lecturer and now academic media celebrity Forrest, a black Liberal, surprise themselves by uncovering difficult similarities while ideologically poles apart.

Tanya Franks is strong as Jewish principal Amy Katz who has her own agenda and her flashback scene with uncompromising student Maggie Rosen given life by Katie Bernstein casts new light on events.

Power Of Sail is set in 2019 and starred Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston (see trailer below) in its Los Angeles run.

Here director Dominic Dromgoole (Marjorie Prime, Menier) gives us a thoughtfully staged ensemble piece which is acted strongly and reflects on much that will loom large as both the US and the UK go to the polls in the coming months.

Power Of Sail is unafraid to question the motives of those deriding so-called wokery and snowflakes and yet capable of also explaining the attraction to the young of right wing politics in rebellion to the actions of the generation that has gone before them.

Going in we weren’t expecting much from it but it actually proved to be a play of unexpected depth that was constructed elegantly and executed with both comedy and flair..

• Pictures by Manuel Harlan via Facebook courtesy Menier Chocolate Factory
• Have you seen a show at the Menier before and what did you think of this production? Tickets
• Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this review? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook