Review: Cracked Tiles

Some memories are so vivid, so powerful as to remain with us for all time. Occasionally, living on beyond our own existence. Those memories involving loss go deeper, scarring our conscience and creasing moments of recall. We are all reluctant collectors of such moments. We seek no claim of them, yet deep down we know a life without loss is like a bag of chips without salt n vinegar…just not worth the pickle.

Cracked Tiles is beautifully evocative theatre. Written, directed and performed by Lorenzo Novani, it begins with Riccardo returning to the family business, a chip shop, a place where he grew up and breathed in daily the deep-fry aroma - the nectar - of West Coast Scotland. Not the happy return he might’ve wished for himself: his father has died and bequeathed to him the Paisley chippie. And now here he is before us, trying for all his worth to sell the audience a business long past its prime. It is a veritable museum where the prices on the plastic menu have not changed in decades and can now not be changed lest the whole menu disintegrates. It is a beautiful metaphor for a family fearful of change. Not just the fear that it might bring down the shutters on the shop but the fear that the whole edifice of the family unit might crash around them to the ground.

The characters manifested by Novani are wonderfully crafted. Fleeting in their appearance but lasting in their impression. At the core of the play is the relationship between Riccardo and his father who, for a pillar of the community…the giver of life…the wrapper of chips, remains resolutely remote. Riccardo regales us with memories of the patrons: the woman who turns up for her weekly fritter; a casual who tries to swindle fags; and an uncle who likes a dirty joke. Throughout it all, Riccardo remains forever the kid sitting atop bags of potatoes, cued up for the chipper, drinking in a tapestry of working class life. Sadly, he grows up. His innocence receding, hand-in-hand, with the hey-days of the chip shop. Paternal Nonna makes more than a discernible impression. She is the other narrator. Fixing all situations with her gimlet eye. So resonant are her words that Riccardo, the most reliable of narrators, knows he cannot be relied upon for the full panoply of facts. Here we glimpse that other loss: loss of memory. Loss of veracity, of consistency, when we come of an age where we can take in the full sweep of things and see that which we have always accepted can no longer be trusted. All families have their stories. Like chip-wrapper, it helps keep everyone in their place. No real harm in that. But when the story masks the truth, a crisis of identity often occurs.  

There is a lovely piece of POV-adjacent dramaturgy towards the end of the play. Adult Riccardo is rejected by the modern day staff. They have never seen him. Why should they take him at his word? He hadn’t even turned up at his father’s funeral. During the discourse, Novani pivots 45°, to and fro on the spot: Riccardo – female worker – Riccardo. It is done with such precision, toggling characteristics, that you momentarily imagine yourself to be on the other side of the counter, patiently waiting to make your order.  

Cracked Tiles was performed at The Old Gym Theatre, Govan, between 10th-12th October.