All is not what it initially seems in The Drowned World. The four characters have very different agendas and their lives will soon intertwine.
The madman with the Scottish accent dressed in a holed vest and pyjama trousers could as easily be hero as villain, as could the innocent looking Irish-accented woman. It seems hard to believe that the sweet couple canoodling on the square of manicured lawn can be anything but carefree young lovers.
Within a seemingly very peaceful set, designed by Neil Warmington and containing a flower-filled aquarium, the lawn with bunny rabbits and flowers, a drama of horrific proportions is played out.
The couple have the contagious radiance sickness and are pariahs. They glow, possibly as a result of some nuclear event. They are enemies of the state and the allegory could as easily relate to the Jews in Nazi Germany as to an uncertain science fictional future. The sick are hunted down and killed prior to the rendering down of their bodies.
The couple have finally been identified and flee. The madman is waiting for an angel to visit and believes that the woman, Tara, has come to bless him in every way that he can imagine. The small nondescript Kelly is a soldier whose job it is to hunt down sufferers from the radiance.
This is a very uncomfortable play reminiscent of Wallace Shawn's The Fever and Orwell's 1984 in its depiction of a totalitarian state where logic and humanity have ceased to apply. All that is left is pride and nobility.
The acting, especially from Neil McKinven as the man who shelters but will sell victims and from Josephine Butler as the putative angel, is good under the strong direction of Paines Plough's Vicky Featherstone. She makes very full use of the claustrophobically small space which traps all of the characters.
This is a terrifying vision of a possible future and all who see it will be persuaded to ensure that it can never come about. |
