In a future where climate change has caused catastrophic flooding, pockets of humanity survive huddled together for refuge
By Emma Kelly
Directed by Debbie Fitzgerald
Choreography Charlie Hendren
Projections A/B Smith, aka Boblete
Wild Elk Productions
In a future where climate change has caused catastrophic flooding, pockets of humanity survive huddled together for refuge.
A trio of actor dancers tell this tale of four generations of women, at its heart Toni, a young girl born after it all happened and at first uncomprehending as to why a mother would want to create new life into this disaster.
Isabella McCarthy Sommerville is physical, emotional and resolute, flowing through the adored child clinging to all she’s ever known, the adolescent justifiably angry at everything, until as in all the best hero’s journeys she has no choice, she must move on. The young woman striking out alone, the growing adapting woman, the mother, the elder having to move on again in this fluent world.
Sarah Widdas is mother’s love personified, always there, supporting, pushing, advising, Toni’s light in the dark. There’s a dreadful memory of assault defeated performed with visceral power, and the sense that as long as she’s needed, she’s there.
Lorraine Yu gives strength and resolve, the abandoned child creating a flawed new world from nothing with all the weight of a community on her shoulders, singing and playing (is it a fishing rod? Bow and arrows? No – an intriguing one string instrument) gradually coming out of her spiky armour plating to reach out and learn.
It’s a story of all our lives and a possible future, and for anyone who’s ever let themselves say goodbye, the final moments are very moving.
Simply staged with lights, soundscape and watery projections, in a venue drenched with sea history, the show could travel all round the coast to communities where the water is an ever present element of their livelihoods, and perhaps now a new threat?
A last thought … The Day of the Triffids begins with strange lights in the sky and the appearance of mysterious plants. As I left the Old Net Loft, Brighton Fishing Museum venue, stepping straight onto the seafront looking at the dark sea and the lights of the wind farm on the horizon under a strange green sky that was the beginning of the Aurora Borealis night, I thought about the QR code that carries the programme for The Tower, printed on a little card embedded with mystery seeds …
Philippa Hammond May 2024