Power of Sail
Menier Chocolate Factory, London

WRITER Paul Grellong has embarked on a precarious voyage with this one-act play. Power of Sail doesn’t quite go aground, rescued by some powerful performances, but there is certainly a bit of a riptide in the narrative arc. 

The big issue here has huge resonance with audiences: is our belief in free speech absolute, or are there arguments for deplatforming a speaker? 

Benjamin Carver is the archetype at the rotten heart of this controversy. Holocaust-denier and white supremacist, he is the perfect addition to Harvard professor Charles Nichols’ symposium. Carver is never seen, an emblematic figure, the far-right contrarian who sees academia as a slick goose-step away from fame and power.

Nichols is played by the always urbane Julian Ovenden, who does a grand job of showing the character’s contradictions. He is resolute in the belief that ”the answer to hate speech is more speech.” Is he naive, perhaps, or simply stubborn?

His colleagues implore him to reconsider. The dean Amy Katz (Tanya Franks) seems to demonstrate the dichotomy between upholding freedom of speech, and desperately wanting to kick a Nazi off campus. Her representations that students feel triggered, and their feelings hurt, holds no water with Nichols. He is already despairing of the snowflake tendency: ”They show up to class in pyjamas, hugging pillows!”

Spirited PhD student Maggie Rosen (Katie Bernstein) takes the same tack, requesting an ”SSM” for the student body to put their grievances to Nichols. This Safe Space Meet notion elicited much tutting from the audience. One woman in her eighties told me, as we exited: ”We thought we were brave, going to university at all — and I think we stayed brave.”

Taking the professor’s side, ostensibly, is doctorate student Lucas Poole (a top performance from young Michael Benz). Harmless, sycophantic nerd, or broodingly dangerous incel? The point at which he peevishly self-identifies as ”white male, cis het” is the shibboleth. Has he been lurking, beneath the cloak of geekdom, as an embryonic stormtrooper?

The dreadful consequence of Nichols’ intransigence sees the narrative veer into melodrama. The final scenes are replete with reveals; a hidden agenda is outed, underhand tactics come to light. The players, though, have been too bluntly drawn. By this stage, there is a scarcity of emotional connection between them.

Grellong set out to pay homage to a style of Yiddish storytelling: no neat ending, but a continuation, or even a circling back to the start. I suspect this noble aim was a contrivance too far, especially in a short, single-act structure. 

It left this powerful piece a little adrift.

Runs until May 12. Box office: (020) 7378-1713, menierchocolatefactory.com.