TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2025

Under The Lights
John Travers in 'Under The Lights'. Production Photo: Neil Harrison

An eighty-minute, one-act, one-man show that revitalises the brain and reenergises the heart in its confrontational and considering nature, Maria Connolly's Under The Lights, directed by Stephen Kelly, isn't just the story of a young man's desire to succeed at rugby for his school's team. It's a complex examination of a lifestyle which can either be chosen or demanded by the human need for the spotlight versus the "other" lifestyle that one often finds they have to present for their closest family and friends. It shows aspirations as theatre, and all the dreaminess and murkiness that comes with them, featuring a performance by John Travers that in my view is right up there with the best of the year so far.

Key to Under The Lights' tremendous success is how Connolly's script and Kelly's direction not only draw out the internal forces impacting central character Josh Blair and his journey to succeed in school rugby, but also the external forces, and a visible trust in Travers to fully and convincingly express them all as the actor plays not only Josh but many additional characters. Josh's tale is a familiar one but the manner of its telling is distinctively raw and affecting - through Connolly, Kelly and Travers, we find that a search for glory in any kind of spotlight may be fuel for living but also an ingredient for loneliness, a subjugation by and a submersion in the need to succeed while those who are genuinely nearest and dearest are doing their best to watch out for us.

Under The Lights is especially smart and balanced in examining the value in knowledge and relationships. As we watch and listen to Josh, and more, we see how and why chemistry, either with a partner or as a school subject, can be an aid, a healing hand physically and mentally. We see rhetoric as motivation and emptiness, and family life as both the intention to protect and the perception of hindrance. In this sense, it interestingly echoes that very good Rodney Dangerfield vehicle Back To School, in that teaching, coaching and family structures where lives can find themselves led, inadvertently or otherwise, by defined rules, traditions or both never really prepare an individual for the deviations from these templates that repeatedly and necessarily occur in the real world. And that the demands of "real world living" don't always leave room for the education that can be helpful. 

John Travers in 'Under The Lights'. Production Photo: Neil Harrison

That idea of being driven by what people expect one to be rather than what one wishes their life to be, and how fine the line is between the two, probably defines Under The Lights most of all. It can equate to contrasting television shows one actually wanted to watch when young with television shows that they may well have watched as a means of "fitting in" with the most popular people at school. Which doesn't mean that one can't grow to fully like the show, or, say, a sport, but the feeling of shoehorning or pigeonholing the self is nonetheless there. The message appears to be that the talent and interest which naturally evolves is far better than that which seems externally imposed, although how many choices are truly, fully defined by the self? Sometimes, a little push is needed to get someone going in the direction that might be best for them, and Under The Lights gets this. 

As does Travers, right at the centre of everything. Merging astonishing vocal contortions and compelling physical intensity, he is a presence both commanding and vulnerable. He exhibits a natural talent for inhabiting and projecting the thoughtful and soulful realities which spring from the societally defined framework for living and breathing under the titular lights and away from them. He and Under The Lights reflect individual and communal performativity as sport and as life – and the play is a frankly phenomenal experience.

Simon Fallaha

Under The Lights runs in the Studio at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, from Thursday October 9 to Saturday October 11. For more information, and tickets, click here.