There was an Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman and a Welshman. Well, almost. There was a reconstructed Welshman and three women of these other nationalities. This foursome is made up of a rather past-it singer, Ben Spooner (Robin Laing); a former beauty queen Sarah Cobb (Claire Dargo); a lippy, strident photojournalist Adrian Martens (Lesley Hart) and a senior civil servant Sophia Briggs (Selina Boyack), whose nerves are as tightly strung as her skirt of her Chanel style suit. All of these characters are named from the passenger list of the deserted ship, the Mary Celeste.
Dressed in a theme of white and black, this champagne swilling, coke snorting quartet of reverse refugees set themselves up in a room in a vessel “as big as a town” that’s escaping an urban meltdown. They’ll be ‘all right Jack’ as long as they keep the door locked and eat the peculiar food, like bull’s testicle canapé, that’s on offer. There’s a rumour that the ship is acting as a Noah’s Ark with pairs of beasts in its belly so they have another reason to stay isolated in their ‘luxury’ suite with the shared toilet and karaoke machine. They’ve paid their not insubstantial money; they’re taking their chances.
In what resembles a crazy shipping container but with some fine drawing room furniture, they gradually sink, though not literally, from their veneer of sophistication to mayhem and chaos where they swim in a selection of body fluids. The rapid moving scenes are punctuated by loud noises like an amplified sound of ‘fast forward’ and the clattering bangs of shipping containers that are part Danny Krass’ multi-layered and multi-influenced sound.
This latest play from award winning writer David Leddy, that sees its world premiere with this run, contains a catalogue of diverse and impressive influences from the notion of Ronald Wright’s ‘progress trap’ to Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Melville’s Moby Dick (well these characters are ‘all at sea’) and psychoanalytical thinker Julia Kristeva as well as the Romantic poets. This really is the sublime to the ridiculous. Becky Minto’s set is equally inspired by the likes of Frank Gehry, Herzog De Meuron, Richard Wilson and Cornelia Parker with a collection of pyramids hanging from chains like big dods of Toblerone but more likely to represent old bits of hull.
In spite of the extraordinary esoteric influences that have been brought to the piece, there is not one sympathetic character among this ruthless group, who would all kill their granny for ninepence, giving great potential for some serious schadenfreude as, raw and desperate, these helpless souls now seek help by praying. But even at this stage when they are cast to their fate it’s difficult to feel anything but plus ҫa change.
30 March –2 April, 7:30pm
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Captioned and audio described (Thurs) tour continues to The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen and Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling