Three cheers for the Alma – another thought-provoking play performed with great intensity to an appreciative audience, who despite prolonged applause couldn’t entice actors Lucy Ross-Elliott (Esme) and Angus Harrison (Willard) back out for a second bow at tonight’s performance of Orca.
Apparently dreamt up during a claustrophobic Magic Bus ride down from Manchester, Orca, written by Francis Blagburn and Angus Harrison, not only takes us into the confines of a trailer lorry loaded with a stolen killer whale, but also into the tortured young minds of the activists who have committed themselves to travel with the tanked beast all the way to Kamchatka, there to release it back into the wild. Trouble is, the lorry has stopped somewhere off the M4, the driver has disappeared, the Orca is getting a bit uppity and cracks are beginning to show in our campaigners’ mental well-being.
The confined small black-walled space at the Alma worked perfectly for this piece. It needed no props for the audience to imagine the uncomfortable closeness of a 5,000-pound predator slopping side-by-side with the human existential angst of its keepers within the metallic walls of a juggernaut.
A sequence of short scenes punctuated by darkness allowed first Willard and later Esme to reveal that while signing up for animal activism might have initially levered them out of the mundanity and predictability of an average middle class life, it didn’t protect them from the raw experience of enforced intimacy, of deprivation and anticipated fears of legal consequences. “I didn’t like life before, but this is really shit!” says a worried Willard. It gets a black laugh from the audience.
Truth is, neither Esme nor Willard want to admit that more than anything they need each other to survive this trauma. Willard pleads with Esme to describe ordinary everyday things like shopping to enable him to cling to sanity, while Esme, despite trying to control Willard by taping his mouth shut and his hands together, wants his shoulder to sleep against. Directed by Francis Blagburn, Ross-Elliott and Harrison keep up a good pace throughout, and look like they mean it as they take turns to tear strips off each other. There are hilarious exchanges in which the two boast of their activist credentials, and right-on rants about charity CEO’s drinking caffé lattes.
Meanwhile realistic sloshing noises can be heard from their cetacean friend. Will there be enough fish and sandwiches to last till the east coast of Russia? It doesn’t look hopeful! Orca is much more than an ocean-going mammal on wheels – it’s well worth experiencing this well-acted black comedy drama, tankside at the Alma. ★★★☆☆ Simon Bishop 20/01/15
