Road is a theatrical tour-de-force for thirteen characters, hoover, and Steadicam. "How could those times have turned into these?" is Road's mournful theme, but it's a false nostalgia from the get-go. One can barely imagine life was ever other than this-"like walking through meat in high heels"-for its protagonists, dwellers of a bleak north England housing estate. These 'umble folks are given eloquence and longing in soliloquies that pass for dialogue, or are set to the beat of feet walking, walking, walking. For a play (by Jim Cartwright) that is all words, Road is astoundingly visual, thanks to Alan Clarke's interpretation. Example: Joey (Mike Leigh's comical David Thewlis, cast against type) is in crisis-he's starving himself to death-but the camera rests upon his girlfriend, the ultimate reaction shot. For the black-eyed battered wife who might walk and talk herself to death-or back into marriage-there can be no reaction: she's unstoppable.