Finborough theatre, London
The same non-binary character, facing different challenges as a fledgling teacher and a troubled teen, share the stage in Saana Sze’s ambitious drama

The central, bifurcated character of Martha goes to a school where aggression routinely erupts outside its gates, on the bus home, even in the classroom between teachers and pupils. Playwright Saana Sze’s first full-length play is not so much a reckoning with this violence or the pupil-teacher dynamic as a journey through it: a kind of testimony of survival.

Two figures at either end of a traverse stage speak in monologue about their respective lives: one is a teenager drawn to a volatile girl in an east London classroom. The other is a trainee teacher who was let down by the school system herself but has hopes to improve it now. Both are Black, queer, non-binary.