Ardent Theatre Company, established by creative directors Mark Sands and Andrew Muir, provides artistic support to recent graduates who have found it difficult to make the leap from region to London. Through various workshops with carefully selected practitioners and a week-long residency at Soho Theatre, the ensemble is able to access the industry.
Sacrifice is a play that asks the question, ‘Is it worth it?’ It explores the many challenges young actors face when they finish drama school and begin their acting career. The play begins with seven housemates on a Saturday morning, wondering what a stranger is doing in their house when they invited him over the previous night. It emerges that they all eat and live in the same space, paying,
‘six thousand pounds for one room in the basement of a disused pub on the corner of a dirty high street with no natural light and damp black walls that make it feel more like a coffin than a home.’
They all work in pubs and restaurants to get by, hoping that one they will get their big break in the city. Their dreams are crushed when the stranger, Sam (Sam Weston), interrogates each housemate, and brings to light the reality that they are living. He ridicules each one for paying extortionate prices for rent, running into debt and working day jobs that are unfulfilling. He encourages the actors to abandon their dreams and live a life that doesn’t involve waiting for a phone call that is unlikely to ever ring.
The play is incredibly funny and has moments of millennial wisdom that is relatable to the generation. It answers its own question when the show ends, the lights are turned off and the only noise you can hear is a phone ringing – leaving a feeling that perhaps, it is worth it, that despite everything, you have to keep trying because you just never know what’s around the corner.