Review: In Black Water

The tension of In Black Water begins before the play has even started. All four actors are on stage as the audience come into the theatre and all, apart from The Artist (Eirlys Lovell-Jones) briefly, remain on stage for the whole time. The effect for me was unsettling, I never knew who was in control or in which direction the narrative would progress, adding to its power.

Maddy Power as The Narrator drove the storyline, breaking the fourth wall effectively and with a hypnotic rhythm to their words and movements across the stage.

Maddy Power as The Narrator (Image credit: Katie Wrench)

This was accompanied by strong use of music (Arianna Muñoz being the Sound Editor) which at its best built up feelings of emotion and drama but at times became overly dramatic and overused.

Kitty Ford and Eirlys Lovell-Jones were both fantastic as The Writer and The Artist respectively. The play tells of their relationship and its ebbs and flows as they suffer from family problems and in the case of The Writer, writer’s block.

This is where Theuth (Ella Scott) comes in- the mysterious god of writing whom we see, with their inventive costume (credit to costume designer Kirsty Turnbull), from the beginning, but only learn their true power as the play progresses.

Ella Scott as Theuth and Kitty Ford as The Writer (Image Credit: Katie Wrench)

In The Writer’s search for inspiration, Theuth begins to control them ever more and there are some great sequences of acting as The Writer becomes a puppet to the god of writing.

As the play goes on, the relationship between The Writer and The Artist gets more strained. Whilst it is effective in how the actors manage to effortlessly switch between tenderness and tension, I felt that some of the argumentative scenes and dialogue were overdone.

The play provokes different emotional responses (Image credit: Katie Wrench)

Nevertheless, In Black Water manages to subtly balance different, complex themes such as memories, family, homosexuality and fantasy, without ever being too explicit or having any overpower the others.

The directors’ (Mark Jones and Jake Fenton) use of the space in the Corpus playroom really makes the play immersive. The audiovisual elements (produced by Pablo Tranchell and Charlie Ball) add to this as well, especially the videos of billowing ink drops in water as Theuth is speaking.

Overall, the strong emotions that the actors show, the strong visual elements and the entrancing effect of the music and voiceovers (Michael Olatunji) is what stuck with me after the play. If you are stuck on your essays, do go and see In Black Water for a reminder on the power of writing.

4/5

In Black Water is showing on the 8th – 12th of November at 9:30 pm at the Corpus Playroom. Book your tickets here.

Feature Image Credit: Katie Wrench

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• Preview: In Black Water
• Review: No Exit
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