Visual feast on stage
Marine Snow By Finnius Teppett, directed by Lori Leigh, Bats Theatre, until November 25
The publicity for Finnius Teppett’s new show Marine Snow labels it as an absurdist tale of love, fleas and the struggle for connection, and it is all that and more.
Through numerous vignettes a group of disparate individuals are looking to connect and looking for love. Yet it is the disconnection, loss and loneliness that are at the heart of thisesoteric piece of writing, that almost has too many streams of ideas running through it almost to the pointwof information overload.
Nevertheless, what director Lori Leigh and her strong cast and creative design team have done with Teppett’s script is quite extraordinary – it is an amazing production to watch.
There are characters of sorts, with some interaction between each’s story, but for the most part it is the disconnect that each is going through that manifests itself.
This includes two Fleas, Leon and Conscience (Neenah DekkersReihana and Stevie HancoxMonk), looking for love, a building magnate, Don (John Landreth), having trouble with a shopping mall, Sonya (Isobel Mebus) looking for her missing daughter Penny (Freya Sadgrove) and a shop assistant Sam (Tom Clarke) obsessed with a giant deep-sea jellyfish.
Fish and water play a significant part in the play, especially as the title, Marine Snow, refers to the detritus that floats to the bottom of the ocean. The use that a large fish tank of water is put to is quite spectacular.
The set design creatively enhances the overall themes, as does Nick Zwart’s lighting, but the strong, confident performances of all the actors is the core of its success.
Each actor is on stage for the entire show and always in character, whether part of a scene or not andeach develops what they can from the writing to enhance their character’s journey and create engaging and convincing individuals.
Clear and audible with great orchestration of movement by the director, like the large jellyfish at the end, the actors swell and move about, creating a visual feast, even if the material they are working with is a little obscure.
– Ewen Coleman