"As the mother of a brown boy...", Rayne Theatre, Chickenshed, London

On 6 October 2005, Mischa Niering took part in a botched ram-raid of Tiffany in Sloane Square in west London. Fleeing the scene on a scooter, he became caught up in a high-speed police chase and was killed. The police were later found guilty of taking insufficient safety measures during the pursuit. Niering was 19 years old.

Now, Mischa's friends at the Chickenshed company (where he was once a student) have devised an hour-long show to commemorate his life and death. As its title suggests, this is a highly subjective account based on real-life conversations with Mischa's mother, Karen.

Her words form the emotional heart of the play, which pits them against the harsh voice of authority: "He robbed a shop. He died. What's your problem?"

The play goes much deeper than this, into the tale of a mixed-race boy, abandoned by his black teenage father, a high achiever at school until he is lured into running with the wrong crew. His is a lifelong struggle with identity, brought to life on stage by means of a flexible set of 15 white boxes.

As Mischa and his friends and family grapple with these boxes – vaulting over them, climbing up them, nestling inside them – we realise that this is a teenager boxed in by race, poverty, lack of education, housing and criminality. Finally, these same boxes become his coffin.

The story is told mainly in voiceover, flipping between the tender-hearted words of the mother and the cold legalese of the coroner. On stage, the cast narrate with their bodies, using sinuous dance steps and agile acrobatics.

I particularly liked the scene in which Mischa (Dominic Garfield) bonds with his absent father (Mekbul Jemal Tahir, a guest star from the Adunga Community Dance Company in Ethiopia) in a series of joyous capoeira-style steps.

The beautiful shapes and stillness created by the cast are complemented by Paul Knowles' stunning lighting effects and some inventive multimedia stagecraft. And there's music, too – throughout, a live band provides a pumping soundtrack and accompanies soulful songs and an angry rap about the right to life.

In the final scene, a photograph flashes up of Mischa, grinning directly at the camera and carrying his baby brother on his shoulders. It's a horribly stark reminder that this abstract performance has been about a real life cut short. An urgent and heartfelt evening.

To 28 July (020-8292 9222)